Hope for the future: Sideswipe and Nightstar
by ToaVeka
Summary: post07movie,New Autobots arrive on earth,and 2 of them,Sideswipe and Nightstar,may hold the hope for the Autobot race. If the dying femme can survive, anyways. Rated T. Wow people, thank for loving this so much, I didn't know that I was any good.
1. Sparkmates

**Arggh! Damn plot bunnies! GO AWAY! Ow! One of the bit me! Hard!**

**Fraggin, Like I don't have enough fanfics on the go. Oh well… Here I go again. I read a couple fanfics (One where it turns out Bumblebee is a femme,) and then I get this stupid little plot bunny that comes up and bites me in the slagging throat. So now I must obey and write this story. And just so ya'll know, I'm prone to quirky and odd storylines. Anyways, I take credit for this story, though the explanation of TF reproduction I have to give credit to P.A.W.07**

* * *

Sam leaned on the hood of his oh-so-beautiful-car and looked up at the sky. "Bumblebee, do you think that there are more Autobots out there?" 

"Yes Sam, I'm sure, and so are the others," The Camaro answered. The average person would have been scared shitless had they overheard a car talking, but Sam and Bumblebee were out on a lonely hill, watching the stars. And technically, Bumblebee wasn't really a car; He just looked like one because it suited his purposes. "And they will someday come here to earth. Just as we did."

Sam looked down at his favourite vehicle in the universe. "Hey, now that the Allspark is gone, how will you Transformers keep from going extinct? I mean… You are robots, but everything has a limited life."

Bumblebee revved his engine. "Oh, we'll find a way. The Allspark was not the only way that new Transformers came into existence; if femmes still exist out there, we'll continue."

"What are femmes?" Sam asked, taking his arms off Bumblebee's hood. "And what do you mean by 'if femmes still exist'."

Bumblebee transformed back into his root mode: a giant, bipedal robot. "Femmes are Transformers who were given a bit of extra power when they were sparked. I guess you could equate them to human females," He nodded thoughtfully. "They are capable of creating new sparks within themselves, but not the body. So there must be someone nearby to remove the new spark from her, and to put it in a body."

Sam stared at his guardian. "So in other words, you never need the Allspark?" He felt very put off suddenly. Had he gone through all that trouble for nothing?

Bumblebee shook his head. "Oh no Sam. The Allspark, when it created a new Transformer, he or she was "Born" fully aware and mature. That bot will decide their own fate, whether to join the Autobots or Decepticons." Sam shuddered at the word "Decepticon". "But a bot sparked by a femme is like a human infant; it needs to be cared for. They need a body built for them, a femme can only create the spark, which I'm told is an exhausting process."

"So, uh, what about Transformers men?"

Bumblebee made a sound that meant he was amused. "The term, Sam, is Mech. And just as human males are necessary for reproduction, Mechs are needed too. If you really want the details, ask Ratchet, not me."

"Right," Privately, Sam doubted he really wanted to know, he'd been through sex-ed in school already and he really did NOT want to have to learn the Transformer version. "What about you? Are you Allspark-created or Femme-born?"

Bumblebee looked sad. "Femme-born. I was the last sparkling of Cybertron, after that, Megatron went on a rampage and had almost all the Femmes massacred. My "mother" included. But I was raised very carefully by the Mechs she'd left me with."

"That's terrible. But, if you were the last, does that mean there are none left?"

"I don't know, I hope not," Bumblebee looked out over the horizon. "But even if there are femmes out there, they can only spark if they have a spark-mate."

"A what?"

"A spark-mate, a Mech who is, usually by chance, compatible. His spark has to match harmonics with hers. There are usually multiple compatible sparks, but that doesn't mean that they'll get along…" Bumblebee trailed off. He checked his internal clock. "Oh no, we're late. And I really do not like the idea of your parents grounding you and taking my keys. I don't trust your father." Sam laughed.

* * *

Mikaela Banes sighed as she looked out her window. Now that she knew what kind of beings existed out there, she wished that they would come. She liked the Autobots and wanted them to come to earth where they could live among the cars and trucks, completely visible yet unseen. She thought they were cool, and she had to admit, it WAS because of them that she'd finally been rid of that jerk Trent and had a cool boyfriend in Sam. That most certainly counted for something. As she watched the sky turn, she thought she saw three shooting stars. "Hunh? No way, it must have been my imagination…" She trailed off.

* * *

A few miles away, three Italian imports were racing down a deserted roadway at 90 mph. Two of them, the two racing side by side in the front, were beautifully crafted and identical, save for colour, Lamborghini Countachs and, strangely seeing as it had more horsepower, following along behind with a straining engine, was a sleek silver Ferrari Enzo. Had another person been on that road, they would have seen that none of the three cars had a driver. 

One of the two Lamborghini's, the one with a handsome red and black colour scheme, slowed down until it was beside the straining Ferrari. "Are you alright Nightstar?" It spoke in a male's voice. "Slow down." The Lamborghini hit it's brakes and the Enzo seemed almost grateful as it followed suit.

"Oh thanks Sideswipe, I couldn't have held that pace up for much longer. You and Sunstreaker must think I'm a pain. I can't even hit your guys' cruising speed any more."

Sideswipe revved his engine. "Don't say that! Come on, I know that you're aren't in the best condition, if anything, we've been pushing you too hard, are you tired?"

"Y-yes, but, don't we need to find the other Autobots?" The Ferrari tried to accelerate, but found the strain too much and quickly stopped. By now, the second Lamborghini had turned around and come back.

"Now what? Nightstar burn out? Again?" He revved hid engine irritably. "Come on, I like my new look, and it looks like it's gonna "rain" as they call it here."

Sideswipe transformed, he stood at around twenty-seven feet. "Shut up bro, you promised me that you'd help me take care of Nightstar." He glared angrily down at the golden Countach. "Don't tell me you're trying to get me to just leave-"

"I never said that!" Sunstreaker interrupted hastily. "I know as well as you do why Nightstar's like this, but it's becoming a liability. We need to find the other Autobots, Nightstar will need a medic." He transformed as well, stepping to look at his twin in the optics. "If we don't find a good medic in three months of this planet's time, Nightstar will die in pain."

The bot in the center of this argument seemed unwilling to join in. "Please guys, not now… I can't take it." Finally, Nightstar transformed and stood up. Or tried too. Stumbling, she let out a squeak and would have collapsed had Sideswipe not been expecting her to faint. He swiftly stepped forwards and caught her as she fell.

Sunstreaker looked concerned. "Well, argument over, come on, let's find a place to rest."

* * *

Barricade hated earth, he hated humans, he hated Autobots, and most of all, He hated losing to Autobots. So it was understandable why he was in a foul mood. As he drove angrily down a road, something on his radar cheered him up considerably: three other Decepticons. He stopped and Transformed just as Starscream touched down on the road. Following close behind was another jet aircraft, F-18 hornet by the looks of it, and a Corvette came roaring down the highway, momentarily amusing Barricade as he remembered that he was supposed to punish speeders. 

Starscream stepped forward. "Barricade," He said in Cybertonian. "You are online, and still a Decepticon, I admire your fortitude."

Barricade bowed, he knew better than to cross Starscream. "Thank you Starscream. I congratulate you on your promotion to supreme commander of the Decepticons," He spoke in the same language. "I report that four new Autobots have landed, they all have yet to join the Autobot commander."

"Excellent. We shall pick them off one by one."

"Unfortunately, three arrived together and they are staying together, but they are moving uncommonly slow."

Starscream shrugged. "Whatever, it seems that they are weak, easy prey." He gestured carelessly at the two Mechs behind him. "Ramjet and Breakdown."

Barricade grinned, if showing what appeared to be fangs counts as a grin. "Delighted, as these fleshlings say, now, let us hunt."

* * *

Sideswipe carried Nightstar to a stand of trees while Sunstreaker kept an optic out for trouble. "Sunny…" 

"Don't call me that Sideswipe."

"I'm sorry, but I'm really worried about Nightstar, she's getting weaker and weaker."

"I know that, Primus, I was the one who found her, remember? You don't think I realize they're dieing? If only we could get her to a medic."

Sideswipe carefully put the offline femme on the ground. "I really hope the reports that Ratchet went with Prime are true, if anyone can fix her, he could."

"Yep, and we'd sure know that." Sunstreaker chuckled, then went still. Sideswipe followed his brother's gaze to see a police car driving up slowly. With a start, he realized that it knew they were there.

"Aw frag," His arm transformed into a laser cannon, and he took aim. As he watched, the cop transformed to robot mode and began to walk up the hill.

Sideswipe readied to fire, but then the intruder stopped. "Identify yourselves Autobot comrades." With a start, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker grinned at each other; they had been lectured to many times by that voice to not know it.

Sideswipe swiftly powered down and leapt forwards happily. "Prowl! It's Sideswipe and Sunstreaker! Are we ever glad to see you!"

Prowl scowled as soon as he heard that voice; he respected the twins' skill, but they were a pain. But he sensed a desperate tone to Sideswipes voice and wondered what could cause the fearless, sometimes insane warrior so much grief. "It is nice to find my fellows as well. But why are you so upset?"

Sunstreaker answered. "It's Nightstar here," He pointed at the femme, who'd regained consciousness and gave Prowl a weak smile before putting her head back down to rest. "She's in a really bad state and we can't travel very far before she needs to stop."

Prowl bent down to look at her. "I'm no medic, but I may be able to…" He trailed off and took a closer look at her. "Primus! How have you managed to keep her alive?"

Sideswipe showed Prowl his arm. "We've been siphoning off our own energy to her because we can still absorbs solar energy, but it just isn't enough. She needs a medic, and fast, or she'll die."

Suddenly, a huge explosion ripped through the stand of trees.

* * *

Mikaela noticed flashing lights in the distance. Fireworks? No… Wait…. There were two fighter jets. She went pale and reached for her cell phone, dialled Sam's phone number and mentally begged him to pick up. On the sixth ring, he did. "Witwicky residence." 

"Sam, it's Mikaela. I can see flashing lights in the distance and there's fighter planes."

"What!? Oh shit! Mom! Dad! I gotta go! Mikaela, me and Bumblebee will come pick you up in five minutes!"

"Alright."

"Nightstar, get out of here!" Sideswipe yelled. The femme hesitated, she hated to run from a fight. "Go! And that's an order!" Roared Sideswipe.

Surprised, Nightstar stepped back. But he was right, she didn't have the strength to fight, she could only hope that the Decepticons were no match for the twins and Prowl. She transformed and took off as fast as her failing circuits would allow.

Barricade noticed the retreating signature. He swiftly transformed and followed.

* * *

Ironhide rolled as fast as his wheels could carry him. He'd received Bumblebee's communiqué with a mixture of delight at the arrival of new Autobots (And the chance to pound some Decepticons into scrap) and concern, what if they were too late? Almost angrily, he pushed his vehicle mode to the limit. He saw the other Autobots and drove into line behind Optimus. He could see that slagging Starscream flying in slow circles, leisurely gunning down Ironhide's comrades. Suddenly, one of the F-22's wings was blown off and Ironhide revved his engine in approval, too bad he hadn't made that shot. 

As the Autobots came to the top of the hill, they saw Barricade chasing down a silver Ferrari with no difficulty whatsoever. The Enzo transformed, and looked as if it was ready to defend itself, but it was only too easy to see that this warrior was already beaten. But before anyone could make a move to help, a red Lamborghini Countach came screaming down the road any rammed into Barricade's legs, sending the Decepticon for a fall. Transforming, Sideswipe leapt in front of Nightstar and stood there protectively.

"Come on Decepticon! Let's see what your spark looks like!" He roared in Cybertonian.

Ratchet blinked, how he knew that voice, that attitude. Why did the universe see fit to punish him by creating those two? Why? He'd been there the day they'd been sparked, and he'd watched them become true warriors, but Sideswipe and his brother were still a pain. Then he saw another jet fighter preparing to strafe Sideswipe and the bot behind him down. Ratchet mentally counted to four and bang, the jet lost a tailfin. Still in the Air, the aircraft beat a hasty retreat. Sunstreaker had aimed well.

Breakdown felt his courage drop as he saw how many Autobots there were, deciding he was safer to take on Prowl, he turned to face the police car. Big mistake. Prowl dropped him in thirty seconds. But no one had time to celebrate.

Nightstar gave an involuntary screech of pain as she was lifted off the ground by the neck. Sideswipe whirled, but found himself helpless to do anything because Barricade was using the femme as a shield and had his cannon pointed directly at her spark. "Deactivate your weapon and surrender Autobots." Torn, Sideswipe looked into Nightstar's pleading optics, she was telling him _No, I'm not worth it._ But he had no choice, he knelt down and made to remove his cannon.

But Ironhide had other plans. He shot Barricade easily in the back and the Decepticon police car dropped the femme who collapsed on the ground and didn't move. Barricade fell and Ironhide put a shot through his head to be sure he wouldn't get back up.

Then he, Optimus, Ratchet, Bumblebee, and the humans came down to where the three mechs were standing. Prowl saw them and saluted. "Optimus sir." He said in fluent English.

Optimus smiled. "Prowl, it is good to see you," He looked at Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. "You two, it's good to see you are well, who is your friend?"

Sunstreaker glanced at his brother, who did not even seem aware that his commander was addressing him. Sideswipe had knelt down next to Nightstar and was gently trying to wake her up, speaking softly in Cybertonian to her. "She's Nightstar, Sideswipe's spark-mate."

Ratchet took less than a microsecond to process all that he had observed and to put it together with what was said. "Is she sparking!?"

Sunstreaker nodded grimly. "Yeah, but the trip took too much of her energy, me and Sideswipe have had to siphon our energy to her." He held up his arm to show a small hole. Ratchet realized they must have somehow jury-rigged themselves to save her. But that didn't solve the problem. Furiously, he shoved Sideswipe away from Nightstar and rolled her on her back.

Sideswipe protested. "Hey!" But he quietened when he realized who had moved him. "Ratchet, thank Primus…."

Prowl watched with an air of concern. But he was a tactician, and as worried as he was he knew that they had to move. "Prime, we need to go to a more secure location."

Sideswipe glared at Prowl. "No! Nightstar needs to rest! I won't let you-"

"Enough Sideswipe," Interrupted Ratchet. "Although he is right Optimus, I may not believe in miracles, but that is the only way to explain why this femme is still functional."

Mikaela looked at Sam. "Sam, what is a femme?"

Sam remembered the talk he'd had with Bumblebee only a few hours ago. "A femme's like a girl Transformer."

Mikaela started. "So… what does all that mean?"

Sam thought hard. "I don't know, but I think…. I think she's the transformer equivalent of pregnant."


	2. Independant

**XD Thanks Misao-CG, I've never been glomped before (Picks self up from the floor) Anyways, this episode is mostly cute fluff, and a few character developments XD. Mostly because I'm considering what to name the Sparkling, so I am not going to bring it into existance untill I get an idea. If you have a suggestion, please send it. Anyways folks, please don't feed the plot bunnies, if I get one more idea I'll overload and forget the ones I already have, and they're too funny to forget.**

* * *

Sunstreaker made a sighing sound and sat down. It was good to be back among his fellow Autobots. He only wished that his brother would stop caring so much about that infernal femme.

Sunstreaker mentally slapped himself. How could he think like that? Nightstar was a cool bot to have around. She was only such a pain because she'd been damaged and couldn't absorb energy. And the fact that this damage coincided with her starting to create a new spark had meant that she was barely holding on to life. Sunstreaker wasn't sure how his brother felt about all this; Sideswipe was spending more time with his spark-mate than his brother, something that irritated Sunstreaker. Sometimes, the golden warrior had been suddenly struck with jealousy as he watched the only being in the universe he cared about paying so much attention to the dying female. It was, in Sunstreaker's mind, partially Sideswipe's fault that Nightstar was so bad, it WAS his spark that had given the final element necessary for Nightstar to procreate. Sometimes, Sunstreaker just wanted to point this out and then tell his twin to get over it.

But he couldn't, Nightstar was an Autobot now, like he was. And to be honest, before she'd been damaged, she'd been a lot of fun. He'd never before met a femme, and rarely met a mech for that matter, who was almost as cunning fighter as he and Sideswipe. She had no problem with watching the twins disassemble a Decepticon; in fact, she often helped. So Sunstreaker angrily told himself to grow up. Maybe it was just that now that Sideswipe had a spark-mate, and had suddenly matured, Sunstreaker just felt a bit left out. But that didn't mean that he should just keep trying to make Sideswipe abandon Nightstar.

Sideswipe looked up when he heard someone coming down the hall; he was surprised to see Sideswipe. His brother seemed worried. "Ratchet wouldn't let me stay with her. He had Ironhide throw me out of medbay."

Sunstreaker put a hand to the side of his head. Primus, was Ratchet ever in for a tough time; ever since she'd started sparking, Nightstar was terrified of being without someone she knew. He looked at his brother emotionlessly. "She'll live. And don't give me that look!" He said hurriedly as Sideswipe glared at him. "She will, and I'm sorry if you don't like my directness, but she's not my spark-mate. I was getting tired of her, if you were not my brother, I would have left you two in the dust a long time ago."

Sideswipe's glare softened. "Sorry bro, I know you've been putting up with a lot of slag recently. But I couldn't just leave her, I mean, it's my fault that she's so weak."

"I was wondering if you knew that," Said Sunstreaker thoughtfully, he glanced down the hall to see Ratchet coming. "Henh, looks like ol' Hatchet can't work when she's panicking."

Sideswipe gave the medic an angry look. "I take it you believe me now?" Ratchet gave a resigned shrug and irritably gestured for him to go calm his spark-mate. Sideswipe quickly walked down to the medbay. He walked over to the table where Nightstar was making a whimpering sound and touched her shoulder. "You alright?"

Nightstar relaxed the instant she felt his touch. "I don't know." She tilted her head to look at him. "Am I dying?"

Sideswipe shook his head vehemently. "No way! Maybe if we were still on our own, but Ratchet can fix anything! You'll be okay. And so will the Sparkling, when it comes. I promise." Nightstar weakly raised her head again, trying to see Sideswipe's face, he gently pushed it back down. "Don't hurt yourself, I'm right here." He leaned over and put his cheek beside hers in the greatest gesture of affection he was capable of. "Get some rest, I won't let Ratchet kick me out again."

Trustingly, Nightstar shut off her optics and sighed. She knew that Sideswipe would keep his word; he always had before. Sideswipe glanced up in time to see Ratchet walk in quietly. The medic looked at Sideswipe and realized that the warrior was hardly in better shape than his spark-mate. "Sideswipe, you look like a Decepticon was chewing on you."

Sideswipe checked his internal diagnostics and reacted in surprise; he hadn't realized how much damage he'd gotten in the battle. "Hunh, guess I do," He said this matter of factly. But Ratchet noticed that Sideswipe's tone had a bit of fear in it. "Ratchet, is she alright? Her spark is so cold."

Ratchet blinked for a second, then remembered that when spark-mates were really close, they could feel the others spark. "She will be fine, Sideswipe. All she needs now is rest and recharge. Let me see your injuries."

Sideswipe, with a patience born from centuries of being poked, prodded and put back together in Ratchet's care, sat on the table beside the one where Nightstar slept and held out his maimed arm. Ratchet took about two minutes to fix it. As he started on the other arm, he noticed the little hole that Sideswipe had used to transfer energy to Nightstar, keeping the femme alive. "So, tell me, how did you find Nightstar?"

Sideswipe, who'd been watching the femme sleep, looked up at the medic. "Me and Sunny found a Decepticon camp. They had a bunch of femmes and Megatron had ordered that they be killed. But a few of the creeps found femmes whose sparks matched their harmonics. So they kept those femmes around them, and to make said femmes more open to their advances, they let all the others live, in a show of "mercy"."

Ratchet made a sound of disgust. He picked up a sharp blade and cut into Sideswipe's arm. "So, you and your brother went in and blasted said Decepticons to pieces, did you?"

Sideswipe did as much of a shrug as he could get away with without hurting himself. "One of the femmes escaped, we ran into her by accident. She begged us to help. She gave all the data we needed to destroy the Decepticons there practically before they knew we were there. You'd have been amazed, we were. There was close to 100 femmes there, all of them were under a death threat unless about ten of them were pets to some Decepticons."

Ratchet stopped what he was doing and stared at Sideswipe. "100? What happened to them all?"

"They took off, me and Sunny couldn't take care of them, and they were glad to be free. Sunny went into one of the compounds and found this one femme chained in a cage. He managed to find the off button."

Ratchet smirked. "What, he didn't just break her free?"

Sideswipe laughed substantially. "He tried, the energon bars fried his paintjob something serious," Ratchet chortled. "Anyways, he frees her and leads her out, they took a long time because Sunstreaker wanted to make sure the place was empty. Once he was sure, we left some explosives by the energy stockpile and watched the light show."

Nightstar shifted on her table, Sideswipe's head turned back to look at her. "Then Sunstreaker, he'd radioed me the go ahead to blow the place, came over and she was still with him. I figured that she wanted to say thanks but when she took my hand…" He hesitated and looked at Ratchet. "She felt warm. Not like how a star does, or fire, but she was warm. It was a very nice warmth, I liked it." Ratchet looked down to conceal his smile. That warmth was the result of a spark sensing another nearby that matched harmonics. "Sunstreaker thought I was nuts when she asked us if she could come along and I said yes."

Ratchet finished his repairs and thoughtfully reached up to grab Sideswipe's head. "That's it, I need to check and make sure that nothing's loose in there." He shoved Sideswipe's head down until the warrior was laying face down on the table.

"Hey!" Sideswipe protested loudly to being treated like a Youngling. "You could have just told me to lie down!"

Ratchet smiled in imitation of the expression he'd seen on Sideswipe's face many times before. "Now where's the fun in that?" Sideswipe groaned.

Nightstar activated her optics and rolled to her side to see what was happening. Ratchet, ever alert to those in his care, released Sideswipe and walked over to check on her. Nightstar gave him a look. "Why are you doing that to Sideswipe?" She demanded in Cybertonian.

Sideswipe sat up and winced as he turned his head. "He's Ratchet, Nightstar, he always picks on me." He spoke in the same language. "The medic just doesn't like me."

Nightstar shrugged. Ratchet looked her over. "Better already, you mostly needed to power up, so now you're in good shape," He made her lie back down so that he could check her internal systems for damage, not to mention he wanted to make sure that her spark was undamaged. If it were damaged, he'd have to find a way to stop the sparking process that was already very well under way. That reminded him. "How long have you been sparking?"

"Eight orns…Right?" She looked at Sideswipe for confirmation.

He nodded. "More or less."

Ratchet frowned. He exposed her spark compartment, but did not open it; that could have been fatal to both her and the partially created spark within. Instead, he checked the exterior temperature, and looked for damage to the compartment. He made a pleased sound when he found a small malformation. "Good, even with the time you spent without recharge, the sparking process managed to continue without too much interference it seems." Nightstar looked very happy to hear that. As did Sideswipe. Smiling, the red mech stood up and waked over to look down at his spark-mate; she favoured him with a glowing smile.

Ratchet thought for a second. "If nothing goes wrong, we'll have the first sparkling in vorns here with us in just over 6 orns." Sideswipe looked, if anything, happier still. Ratchet was pleased as well. This was a very good sign for the entire Transformer species. He sealed Nightstar's chest and made to leave. "You need to stay here in the medbay Nightstar. Sideswipe, keep your spark-mate from moving around too much."

Sideswipe nodded at Ratchet's back. Once the medic was gone, he sat down beside Nightstar's bed and gently rested his right hand on her forehead. "See? I told you Ratchet would be able to help. He's always able to help."

Nightstar let her optics narrow sleepily. "Yes."

Sideswipe leaned forward and put his left hand on her chest, over her spark. He could feel its warmth through his own spark. "I can tell you're better, your spark is warm again."

"So is yours." She said softly, comfortable anywhere as long as she could feel that warmth.

Sideswipe smiled and murmured into her Audio's gently until she fell asleep, and then continued whispering, enjoying the knowledge that they were safe and that soon he'd have his own Sparkling to raise. After a while, he started to feel tired and he simply rested his head over his spark-mate and closed his optics; both of them slept more soundly when reassured by the other's warmth.

* * *

Ratchet walked thoughtfully down the hall. He was deciding just how to word to Prime the great news. Although they all had heard Ratchet exclamation on the battlefield, the other Autobots didn't know yet if Ratchet's initial prognosis was correct. But there was a definite feeling of hope. And fear. For all they knew (although Ratchet now knew better) Nightstar was the last femme in existence, and if she died, the species would end. 

Bumblebee was talking with Ironhide when Ratchet walked in. Almost simultaneously, they looked up at the medic, hope and concern clearly showing on their faces. Optimus stood up and walked over from the other side of the room. "Well?"

Ratchet nodded curtly. "She's recovering well. My initial prognosis was correct, she is sparking," There were some cheerful noises from the other Autobots, Bumblebee especially; he had BEEN the last sparkling of Cybertron, and was therefore both very curious about what exactly a sparkling was like, and very pleased that there was finally going to be someone younger than he. Someone who he could teach like all the other Autobots had taught him. "Also…" Ratchet paused to make sure the others were paying attention. "It appears that the twins found a Decepticon genocide camp. They freed many femmes from that place. There is a good chance that at least a few will join us here on earth."

This news was also greeted with delight. This meant that the species would go on. Prowl looked up from a computer that Ratchet had painstakingly built from earthen metals. He seemed pleased by the news, yet somewhat irritated by something. "Where did the other twin go?"

"Out," Replied Ironhide. "He was being annoying so I told him to slag off."

"At least that has not changed," Noted Ratchet with amusement. "The red one has apparently grown up. We'll see how long that lasts."

* * *

Nightstar walked happily down the hallway, Ratchet had finally let her out of medbay after a week. Throughout that time, Sideswipe had attempted to stay with her, but had been sent out to patrol the surrounding area a few times with Bumblebee and Sunstreaker. So now that Ratchet had let her get up and explore, she'd decided to make the best of things. She was presently looking for her spark-mate, wanting to show him she was better. Nightstar hoped that Ratchet would let her out of the base, Sideswipe had told her about this planet and she loved exploring. 

"Better are you?" Nightstar started and turned around to see Ironhide.

" Hi Ironhide. Yes, Ratchet let me out of medbay. Have you seen Sideswipe?"

"He's out on patrol with Sunstreaker, they should be back soon. Seeing as they're late."

Nightstar smiled. "I bet they found a fun place to race. Maybe I'll join them," She scowled. "If Ratchet ever lets me out, he's worse than a prison guard." Ironhide chuckled and nodded in agreement. Now that she was strong and healthy again, it was easy to see why the twins liked the femme so much; she had a clever gleam to her optics, and moved with the calm assurance of an assassin. "Is there a shooting range? I haven't practiced in cycles."

Ironhide nodded and pointed behind him. "It's down there."

"Thanks." Nightstar walked towards the thick door, trailing her delicate-looking hand over the greyish walls as she went. She enjoyed being a soldier in a military base, not just a femme needing protection, and she meant to keep it that way. Now that she was better, she knew that she should be expected to do some of the work, even if she were sparking. Of course, she knew that it was likely that the Autobots here would be lenient seeing as she was would be sparking the first Sparkling for over 36 vorns (Almost 3000 years). But she didn't want to be mollycoddled; she wanted to fight the Decepticons. She, like all surviving femmes, felt that the Decepticons were her personal enemies. She remembered how many of her sisters in arms had been killed on Megatron's orders because the Decepticon Supreme Commander hated the idea that there was another way to create new life other than through the Allspark. Especially seeing as it was easy enough to control the Allspark and that most femmes chose to join the Autobots.

"Most" being the key word; Nightstar thoughtfully pulled her hand away from the wall and examined it. She could still see the faintly inscribed Decepticon insignia. It had been a horrifying yet illuminating day when Megatron had ordered her deported to the genocide camp. Up until then, she had enjoyed being a bad girl. She liked not having to worry about losing her temper. It was considered a sign of power if you lost your patience and killed the reason of your displeasure. She paused and stopped, looking at her hand but not really seeing it. How many times had she regretted killing only a few moments after it was too late to beat a safe retreat? Why was it that her conscious had never kicked in until her opponent was already dead?

She heard small footsteps and looked around to see a human walking along the catwalk that had been built into the base for just that reason. She vaguely recognized this as one of the two organics who'd been with the Autobots that first day. She'd been terrified to be without one of the twins around the Autobots at first. What would they do if they knew that she'd been a Decepticon? Sideswipe and Sunstreaker knew what she was; they'd helped her get rid of the insignias branded on her hand and stomach. She had been surprised to learn that Autobots were not either hypocritical killers nor sentimentalists. She had found that she honestly did have more in common with the good guys, even with her tendency to be over-aggressive. And so what? Sunstreaker had the same issue, and as she'd learned, so did Sideswipe, although it wasn't as obvious in her spark-mate as it was in his twin.

The human saw her and walked over. "Hello, Nightstar right?" Nightstar nodded. "I'm Mikaela. I thought that you might want another female to talk to. It must be annoying only having guys around.'

Nightstar made a laughing sound. "Actually, I really don't mind being the only femme here, but I would enjoy your company." She held out her hand and Mikaela clambered on to the femme's palm. "Ratchet told me that you were the one who noticed the Decepticons, I have to thank you; had you not alerted the Autobots, I'd have died, and my sparkling with me. I owe you my life."

Mikaela was surprised by the femme's frank manner of speech. But she decided that she liked it. There was no bullshit in Nightstar. "It was nothing. I'm sure that anyone would have done it."

"But you did," Replied the femme. "So I thank you," She started walking down the well-light hall again, unconsciously counting the number of doors on each side and identifying blind spots in the base's security systems. She'd have to point those out, if someone else did not. "Man, this base is just begging to be attacked."

"Hunh?"

"There are major holes in the base security systems. I'll have to tell the Autobots."

"Why do you say that?"

Nightstar shrugged. "Why do I say what?"

"You say "The Autobots", not "The others" or "The other Autobots". Why do you refer to them as if you're not one?"

"Dunno, habit I guess," Nightstar made a mental note to start talking like she'd been an Autobot for her whole life. She stopped outside a set of double doors. "This will be the shooting range. I like how you can see the weld points on the door. Very strong looking."

Mikaela snickered. "But how strong in reality?"

"Not very," Nightstar nodded mock-sagely. "Anyways, do you know the way to the communal area?

"Yes." Mikaela told Nightstar the way and together, they traversed the silent halls. Nightstar enjoyed silence; it was a pleasant sound. Perhaps that may seem strange, but to her, silence was just a lesser sound. She looked up at the black ceiling, wondering why the base was so large; did the Autobots expect that that many would really come? Or were they simply compensating for something?

"Nightstar?"

"Yes?"

"Is it as difficult being a female on Cybertron as it is on Earth?"

"In some ways yes, in others, no. Your planet has so many cultures that I cannot give you an answer. But I do know that any femme who lived among the Decepticon had a terrible life. And that's why I want to get out of here and kick some Decepticon in his cast iron-" Nightstar fell silent as Prowl came around the corner. Mikaela dissolved into giggles. Cast-iron what?

Prowl nodded a greeting and then continued on his way. Mikaela pointed to a door and Nightstar entered. She looked around and noticed Optimus Prime. Wondering to herself how she was supposed to greet him, she slipped back quietly into the shadows. Mikaela, sensing Nightstar's need to observe without being seen, remained silent. After a few minutes, the Patrol came in. Sunstreaker, Bumblebee and Sideswipe. Nightstar put Mikaela down and playfully narrowed her optics. She prepared to pounce.

"Sorry we're late Optimus," Said Bumblebee. "We thought we picked up a Decepticon signal and wanted to check it out."

Optimus nodded. "Understood. You are free to do as you wish."

Sideswipe immediately turned away. "I'm gonna go check on Nightstar."

The femme in question waited until he was right by her and then jumped forward and hit him. Caught off guard, Sideswipe stumbled, but recovered quickly. He turned to his assailant and laughed. "Guess I don't need to go anywhere after all."

"When did you come in?" Asked Ratchet, surprised. He'd been sitting in the corner reading. But that still did not explain how no one had noticed her come in.

Nightstar shrugged. "A while ago, I just felt like being quiet." Mikaela walked along the catwalk until she was where everyone could see her if they wanted to.

"Hi Optimus. I got distracted earlier but I meant to come tell you that Maggie called. She says that the Secretary of Defence would like to see the base."

Optimus nodded. "I'll send Prowl to pick him up."

"Can I go?" Asked Nightstar. She quickly continued seeing Ratchet about to object. "I'll just come along as backup, I'm better now. All this waiting around is killing me."

Optimus glanced at Ratchet who shook his head. "No. You will stay here."

Nightstar did something that her training as a Decepticon forbade. She questioned her orders. "Why? Is it just because I'm sparking? I can take care of myself, and it's not like I'll be in any danger."

Optimus started, his orders had been disobeyed before, but he was still caught off guard by her determination to go out. "Yes, it is partially because you are sparking, but mostly because you have just recovered from near-fatal injuries. Ratchet says you have to stay here, so you stay." Nightstar made a ferocious face at the medic.

Prowl, while not known for his empathy, could see that the femme was more likely to get into trouble if she wasn't allowed out. "I believe that there would be no harm in her coming along sir. Even when she was weakened, she gave the Decepticons a hard time. And it is not very far. I think that it would be good for her. For all of us." He added, glancing significantly at Sideswipe who was giving Ratchet a rather nasty look.

Optimus, suddenly remembering how vindictive the newly christened "Lambo Twins" could be, decided that Prowl's advice was sound. He nodded. "Very well, but only if one other Mech will go along." Nightstar's expression became unreadable. _What, does he think I'll collapse again?_

Sideswipe stepped forward before anyone else could. "She's my responsibility, I'll make sure she's safe." He rolled his optics at her, knowing that she resented being treated like she was dying. She cheered up considerably, and Ratchet had to admit that letting her out probably would benefit. Even robots can get depressed.

Sideswipe was rewarded for his pains with an affectionate touch on the side of his neck before Nightstar turned and followed Prowl out the door and down the hall. Sideswipe followed behind his spark-mate, and when they were out in the hall where the others couldn't see, he reached around her from behind and briefly drew her close. "I thought that I might lose you." He murmured quietly so Prowl couldn't hear. Nightstar replied by leaning back and momentarily burying her head under his chin. Then she stepped away and swiftly returned to her place behind Prowl.

As they stepped outside, Nightstar shielded her optics from the sun; it had been a long time since she'd seen a star from so close up. After her optics adjusted, she looked at the sky. "It's magnificent," She noticed grass and flowers. She thought they were interesting, but time for that later. Right now, she had work to do. "Lead the way Prowl." She said cheerfully. Winking at Sideswipe, she transformed into her stunning silver Ferrari alt mode. "By the way, what exactly are speed limits for again?" Sideswipe snorted in amusement.

Prowl really hoped she was kidding around. Smirking, Sideswipe morphed into his handsome red Lamborghini Countach mode and revved his engine. Nightstar ignored his fooling around and waited patiently for Prowl to lead the way. Relieved, Prowl transformed and led the way to the Pentagon.

* * *

United States Secretary of Defence John Keller waited patiently, wondering which Autobot would come to pick up him and his advisor, Maggie Madsen. She was looking around nervously, and started every time a car drove up. "Calm down Maggie," He admonished her. "We'll know them when we see them." 

"I'm sorry sir, I am simply afraid of cars these days." She swallowed and pointed to three driverless cars that were rolling up to the gates. The one in the lead was a police car, and both the Secretary and his advisor remembered Barricade all too clearly. But this was a different type of police car. And there was an Autobot symbol obviously placed on the hood. But Keller still approached cautiously.

"I assume you are our transportation to Autobots Headquarters?"

"Indeed," Answered Prowl. "I am Autobot Prowl, an enforcer of sorts. If any Autobots get in trouble with a planet's authority, it is my job to ensure said Autobots are brought to justice."

Maggie could have sworn she heard the red Lamborghini in the rear snicker derisively.

Prowl made a throat-clearing sound. "These two of my fellows are Sideswipe," The red Lamborghini revved it's engine. "And Nightstar." The Enzo made a "Vrmmmm!" sound.

Maggie smiled enthusiastically. She had always wanted to drive in an Italian import. Now the question was if she was a Ferrari or Lamborghini person. The Secretary of Defence hesitated before climbing into the police car. "Maggie, ride with one of the other two."

Maggie decided that she liked the look of the Ferrari and clambered in awkwardly. She was welcomed with a slight rev of the engine. Relaxing a bit, Maggie buckled her seatbelt and smiled happily. "Nice choice of disguise." She said admiringly.

"Thanks. By way of better introduction than Prowl can give, I'm Nightstar. The red idiot behind us is my spark-mate Sideswipe." The red Lamborghini inched forward and gently rear-ended Nightstar; just enough to jolt her forward a few inches. Maggie started.

"Hey!" Nightstar revved her engine at Sideswipe, more than ready to back up over his low hood in playful retaliation. Prowl, sensing an impending problem, chose that instant to start moving.

Keller looked back in concern. "Don't worry sir, Sideswipe and Nightstar are just fooling around, they won't do any harm." Assured Prowl.

Keller was still unsure. "Are you certain? They seem ready to run each other over."

Prowl turned onto the freeway and accelerated. "I am, Sideswipe has a large amount of care for Nightstar and vice-versa, he is only teasing her."

"Her?" Thought Keller to himself.

- - -

Maggie giggled. The red Lamborghini was really obnoxious. He'd activated his radio link to Nightstar and was now tuned into a radio station playing the song "Mr. Wonderful" from the DDR video game. Every time the refrain came up he'd playfully bump into Nightstar's rear fender. Maggie had figured out that Nightstar was a girl by both voice and the fact that when Sideswipe was talking on the radio, he'd said "You two ladies." She had decided not to question it.

Nightstar accelerated a bit but Prowl wasn't about to let her get away with speeding and made his point by honking his horn once. Annoyed, Nightstar dropped back. Sideswipe cheerfully drove up alongside her and started crowding her towards the edge of the road. Maggie looked nervously at the red sports car, but Nightstar had her own solution; she hit the breaks suddenly and then accelerated again once she was behind Sideswipe.

Sideswipe started playing the song again. Maggie thought she heard Nightstar snicker. She couldn't help but to think of these two as boyfriend and girlfriend. It was a reckless and annoying, yet cute display of affection. She thought that, despite coming from light-years away, these giant automatons were really not that different from humans.

* * *

As they finally pulled into the small lot that disguised the base entrance, Maggie noticed a familiar face, Mikaela Banes. She got out and stepped back slightly nervous as the three vehicles transformed back into root mode. Prowl was slightly taller than Bumblebee it seemed. Sideswipe was huge; he towered easily over the others, in contrast, Nightstar was rather slender, she was tall, but she only reached to about Sideswipe's chin. Maggie guessed by their dimensions and what she knew about Transformers that Sideswipe could probably pick Nightstar up with one arm easily. Maggie wondered how a robot with such a comparatively small vehicle mode could be so huge. She guessed that Sideswipe must be light for his size. 

Maggie smiled at Mikaela. "Hey, what's up?"

Mikaela smiled back. "A lot, I'll tell you when you have a free moment."

Keller looked up at the three Bots, Sideswipe and Nightstar had walked a short way away and appeared to be talking. Prowl was patiently waiting for the Secretary to familiarize himself with the surroundings and to follow him. Nodding, Keller walked over to Prowl who politely bent down and offered his hand to carry the human in. Keller decided to accept.

Nightstar swiftly picked up both girls, much to their surprise. "Sorry, just figured you were safer in my hand than on the ground; Sunstreaker doesn't watch where he steps." Sideswipe made a sound that could have been a gag or a snort of amusement.

Mikaela smiled. "No problem, just warn us next time."

"Right. Sideswipe, get off." The red Mech had his arms playfully wrapped around Nightstar's neck.

"Make me."

"Must I now?" Nightstar gave him an irritated look but it was somewhat ineffective seeing as she leaned into him. Both Maggie and Mikaela giggled.

Prowl glanced back at them in annoyance. "Come on, The Secretary of Defence needs his advisor." Sideswipe released Nightstar and happily followed her and Prowl into the base.


	3. Pain

Nightstar was humming to herself thoughtfully as she carried the two humans down the hall. She was surreptitiously studying them, and was surprised by how many physical similarities there were between her and human females. Their bodies were smaller, thinner and curvier than the form of a human male, as was Nightstar's when compared to the average mech. They had accented chests, although from what Nightstar had learned from the Internet, they were more than just decoration on humans. The higher voice, the less developed strength, the tendency to have more lower body strength; all were similarities between herself and these two organic creatures whose planet was light-years away from Cybertron. Nightstar theorized that the Allspark must have had some sort of an effect on human evolution for there to be so many physical similarities between Cybertonians and humans.

Nightstar thoughtfully pursed her lips, a gesture she'd picked up from watching too many human movies over a very short period of time (She'd had nothing else to do when Ratchet had confined her to medbay) and made a sighing sound. She felt a twinge in her spark and started a bit. She mentally scolded herself; Ratchet had mentioned that she might feel a few odd surges as the sparking process wore on. She noticed Sideswipe give her a curious look and she shrugged. Sideswipe tilted his head a bit but decided that it was nothing and kept walking.

"Hey Nightstar." Nightstar looked down at the humans in her hand. The blonde one was addressing her. "Mikaela said that you're… Uh… Pregnant."

It took Nightstar a second to understand the word. She laughed. "I guess you could call it that by human terminology. But the term, Maggie, is sparking."

"Oh," The human looked confused. "Okay… Just to simplify things, let's use human terminology please."

"But that would imply that sparking starts and ends the same way Maggie." Answered Nightstar, fully aware that the poor human was uncomfortable with so many males, including the snickering Sideswipe, around. "The two processes can be equated with each other but they're not the same thing."

Maggie had turned an interesting shade of red. "How about we forget I ever started this conversation?" Nightstar shrugged and grinned at Sideswipe, who seemed about ready to burst out laughing. Nightstar noticed that she'd lagged a bit and that Prowl was almost at the conference room, she sped up a bit and was caught up be fore the door opened. She walked in with the two girls and set them down next to a raised platform with human-sized chairs.

Optimus, sitting in a chair under a light, looked up and nodded. "Mr Secretary, good to see you sir."

Keller nodded. "Thank you for allowing me access to your base."

"Nonsense, Sir, this is your planet, if anything, we should thank you for allowing us to stay."

Nightstar resisted the urge to yawn; she really had to stop watching human movies, but she detested formalities. Instead, she looked at Optimus and politely nodded her head. "Should I stay?"

"No, you are dismissed Nightstar."

"Thank you sir." She walked out and shut the door.

Optimus turned to Keller, Maggie and Mikaela. "It is a pity that more of you could not come, but I'm glad that at least you are here, Mr. Secretary. I feel that I should inform you that it seems more Decepticons have arrived here on Earth as well as four more Autobots."

"Yes, we've already met three of them. Who is the fourth?"

"His name is Sunstreaker, he is Sideswipe's twin brother. The two of them are fine warriors, but both sometimes have… Difficulty following orders. Prowl however is an excellent Autobot, and he will more than likely be assigned to the local Police force. His work is his hobby."

Keller smiled. "And what about this Nightstar, I was under the impression that as robots, you were gender irrelevant."

"That is a more difficult question to answer, but to make it short, we do have different genders. However, Megatron wiped out most females, because he disliked their ability to create new life. With the Allspark gone, and few remaining femmes, our species may be dying out. Nightstar is a very good sign to many of us here, more so because she has a spark-mate and because she is sparking."

Keller nodded, unsure as to what exactly the words "spark-mate" and "sparking" meant, but he could guess. "That is good. I would like a tour of the base if you wouldn't mind, and also, what do you know about the Decepticons that are here."

"Of course."

* * *

Nightstar stretched happily as she stepped back outside. Ratchet hadn't said she couldn't go out a second time. He'd implied it, but she knew that acting innocent later would get her off the hook. Right now, she wanted to drive. Sideswipe cheerfully poked at her back and teasingly pretended to drag her back inside. "You need rest! You will hurt yourself!" He said, in horrible imitation of the medic. 

Nightstar giggled and pulled herself free. "Sunshine coming?"

"Should be," Sideswipe glanced around and saw Sunstreaker coming over, and somewhat sour expression marring the golden warrior's handsome face. "There he is."

Nightstar gave Sunstreaker a cheerful look. "What's up Sunstreaker?"

"Idiot human was leaning on me window and left fingerprints all over my gorgeous door." He replied irritably. Nightstar made a "huh" sound and transformed into her Ferrari mode. Sideswipe rolled his optics and followed suit.

Nightstar thoughtfully revved her engine. She wanted to race, wanted to break some rules. But she also felt unusually cautious. "Stupid sparking program." She said to herself. That program was to ensure a femme couldn't push herself too hard whilst sparking, but so far, the only thing that it had done was slow her down, certainly, it hadn't helped when she was trying to protect herself; instead, it had made her have to stop and rest when fighting would have saved her a lot more energy and cost her less injury. She decided to get the medic to fix it. "You two go on ahead, if I break the rules beforehand, Ratchet probably wouldn't be willing to correct my programming, would he?" Sideswipe and Sunstreaker laughed in agreement.

Reluctantly, Nightstar transformed and walked back into the base. She watched the twins race off, noting that Sunstreaker was slightly in the lead, engine revving happily whilst Sideswipe seemed a bit disappointed. With a sigh, Nightstar wandered back into medbay to find Ratchet looking over some files.

"Hey Ratchet, I forgot earlier to mention it but I think a part of my sparking programming might be wrong." The medic looked up.

"What would make you say that?"

"Well, it made me stop to rest in the middle of a fight, resulting in me getting seriously injured… And I can't go at top speed any more, not even to escape Decepticons… How is that supposed to help preserve me and the sparkling anyways?"

Ratchet nodded. "Ah… Yes, I've heard of that, it's a common problem among the more solitary femmes. Lie down over there," He gestured to a table. "I can fix that in an instant."

"Thanks." Nightstar lay down on the table and Ratchet gingerly opened a panel on her head. "By the way… Does this affect my memories?"

"No, it will only read through core programming and such. Why does that concern you?"

"No reason… I just like to keep my thoughts," **And my past.** "Private."

Ratchet nodded understandingly. "I see." His hand became an odd sort of tool that ejected a small wire. Ratchet gently inserted this wire into Nightstar's cerebral circuits. "Hold still now." He warned her, letting the wire connect to her primary processor. It took him about ten seconds to correct the faulty program and he retracted the wire. "Done. Sit up, but take it easy for a few minutes, you might be a bit off balance." He went back to his desk and book.

Nightstar stood up and walked out, wondering whether she'd be able to figure out where the twins had gone. Deciding to just explore, she transformed and drove away, enjoying the bright sun and blue sky. She was happily cruising at the speed limit (Didn't want to get more attention than her Ferrari mode was already getting her) when a car in the oncoming lane of traffic suddenly swerved straight for her. Instinctively, she slammed her brakes and dodged. The other car screeched to a stop, causing a crash and turned after her.

"Screw speed limits." Thought Nightstar. She hit the throttle and took off like a silver bullet. She pushed her 660 horsepower engine to the limit, dodging traffic skilfully. But the other car had no difficulty keeping up. Nightstar swore in Cybertonian. How was this freak keeping up? She turned onto the nearest off-ramp and braked, thinking that she'd lost her follower. A screeching of tires told her otherwise. She managed to reverse quickly enough to avoid being turned into an Enzo-shaped pancake and she drove swiftly towards a deserted roadway. Time to teach this Decepticon some manners.

The Decepticon followed her, now that she got a better look, Nightstar recognized a black Corvette. Not bad in the looks or performance department, damn, no wonder she couldn't shake him. Angrily, Nightstar turned onto a long stretch of deserted road; vaguely recognizing it as the same road she and the twins had met Prowl on. She spun around and transformed, ready to teach the Decepticon some manners. "Come and get me!"

The Decepticon complied. Transforming he converted his right arm into a cannon and fired. Nightstar easily avoided his shot and converted her right arm into a long thin sword. Her left arm became a laser cannon. She leapt forward and stabbed at the Decepticon's chest. He avoided, but couldn't defend from a well-aimed shot straight to his head from Nightstar's cannon. Wailing in pain, he dropped to the ground. "Mercy! Mercy!" He pleaded in Cybertonian. Nightstar didn't even hesitate; she drew back her arm to stab his spark.

"I don't believe in second chance," She said softly. The Decepticon tried to scamper away from her, but she kicked him to the ground. "Don't waste my time trying to escape," She made one single slash, her sword easily piercing the Decepticon's armour. Spark sliced in half and instantly fading, he went limp and died. Nightstar regarded him quietly for a few seconds. "I am sorry in a way," She told the body. "But I know all too well that mercy on my part would have meant nothing to you but weakness."

Nightstar activated her radio link to Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. "Hey boys, hope you're having fun."

"Of course we are, where are you?" Asked Sideswipe.

"Just cleaning up some trash," Nightstar poked the dead Decepticon with her foot. "One less Decepticon in the Universe now."

"What? Why didn't you call us?" Demanded Sunstreaker. "You have all the fun." He complained. Nightstar laughed.

"Sorry Sunny, forgot."

"My name is SUNSTREAKER!"

Nightstar grinned to herself; it was way too easy to push Sunstreaker over the edge. Primus, she loved harassing him. She heard the sound of engines and looked up. "Aw Shit."

"What?" Came the twins' simultaneous replies.

"More Decepticons… Five of them this time…" Nightstar sighed; she couldn't take on that many opponents simultaneously unless they were cannon fodder troops. Pity, but at least the twins would be happy.

"Need any help?"

"If you boys wouldn't mind. I'll be at the same junction where we met the Autobots the first night we were here."

"It's a date." Agreed Sideswipe.

Nightstar transformed and let loose all her 660 horsepower, accelerating to her top speed in 13 seconds. She needed that speed; one of the Decepticons had no trouble catching up to her. He rammed into her rear fender. "Hey femme, you feel like having some fun?"

Nightstar swerved and made a mental note to make sure that this one went down by her own hands. "Sure, sweetie, just as soon as I leave you in the dust." She said, a cynical purr in her voice. She released her breaks (That's right, she'd been holding back) and rocketed forward, leaving a rather confused Decepticon behind.

"She said what?" He asked his fellow.

"We get to fight a feisty one." Replied his comrade, a sleek Porsche. "Maybe my life will be a bit interesting before I die."

"Shut up Dead End."

Nightstar checked her rear-view mirror. She didn't like what she saw; all five Decepticon cars were having no difficulty keeping up with her. "Shit," she would have grinned. "They ain't craptraps like that other one. This'll be fun." She heard two familiar engines up ahead and saw her two favourite Lamborghini Countachs waiting for her and her newest suitors. She raced up to them, screeching to a stop and spinning around to face her assailants. "Hey guys, I claim the other Ferrari."

"Ladies first," Replied Sunstreaker, standing up with a smirk. Sideswipe transformed and activated his right laser cannon. Nightstar leaned thoughtfully against a tall, bare tree. She grinned when the five Decepticons didn't even hesitate when they saw her and the twins. Pity the fools.

She leapt at the one who'd been harassing her and he caught her arm and yanked her off her feet. "I don't blame you for loving me darling," He smirked. "But as a Decepticon, I have a duty to kill you."

Nightstar rolled her optics and kicked the Decepticon squarely in the chest, sending his stumbling back. "And as a former Decepticon Assassin, it's my pleasure to annihilate you." She replied, coolly converting her arm into its sword mode. She made to stab him but he avoided and punched her back.

"Ugh!" Nightstar stumbled. The Decepticon, sensing weakness put his cannon to her throat. But Nightstar was not in the mood to die; she elbowed him hard and sent a backhand slash for his neck. It connected, but seeing as it was the dull side of her sword, it failed to kill him. However, he certainly did let go. She spun around and shot him over the spark, but his armour absorbed much of the attack. He shot her in the side. Nightstar got angry; her pale optics flashed scarlet and she lashed out viciously.

Alarmed, the Decepticon stepped back. He made as if to fire another shot, but Nightstar fired off a round between his optics, dropping him. She strode over and shot him through the chest, assuring his death. She looked up to see that Sideswipe was fighting one of the remaining, and three had ganged up on Sunstreaker.

In a calculating manner, Nightstar came up behind one of the Decepticons and stabbed him from behind, dropping him instantly, another hesitated, and Nightstar blasted him through the head. Wisely, the remaining two Decepticons transformed and retreated; Sunstreaker and Sideswipe also transformed and gave chase, Nightstar remained behind, nursing her side and looking over her three dead opponents. Sighing, she rubbed her stomach, trying to figure out how bad the damage was. She decided that she was alright… no damage near her spark. Suddenly, she grinned; Ratchet was going to have a fit.

She looked up as the twins drove back up. "Fuckers got away." Sunstreaker informed; he descended into a string of English and Cybertonian curses.

Nightstar raised her eyebrow fractionally at the unknown terminology, deciding to research the definitions later; it sounded like a fun language, Cybertonian lacked good expletives. She turned to Sideswipe. "Well, that was fun. Ratchet's gonna be torqued though." She rubbed her side a bit. It was rather sore, but she'd live.

Sideswipe grinned. "Too bad for Ratchet. Worse for these suckers. Nice shooting earlier."

"Yeah, but next time, don't ruin my fun." Growled Sunstreaker.

Nightstar did the Transformer equivalent of batting her eyelashes at Sunstreaker. "Sorry, I couldn't resist, they were about to mar your _gorgeous _paintjob." She emphasized the word "gorgeous."

Sideswipe snorted, and even Sunstreaker was a bit amused. But he still wanted to find a good, barbed insult to throw at her. "Better get you back to HQ or Ratchet will scrap us for letting you get hurt."

Nightstar gave a long-suffering sigh and sat down on the ground. "Well, as these humans say, Mom needs to chill." Both of the twins howled with laughter and sat down, Sideswipe beside her and Sunstreaker beside his brother. Nightstar activated her radio. "Prowl, you read?"

"Affirmative Nightstar, go ahead."

"The twins and I got into a bit of a scrap with some Decepticons, we got three dead piles of slag that need to be cleaned up."

"Alright, good job, any injuries?"

"A little scrape on my side, couple of dents on all of us, Sunstreaker's paint's scratched-"

"WHAT!?" Sunstreaker frantically examined his bodywork for damage, whilst Sideswipe laughed.

"And that's it." Finished Nightstar pleasantly. Shaking her head at Sunstreaker in amusement.

"Alright, I have a lock on your location, I'll send Ironhide to come clean up, you three return to base."

"Yes sir," Nightstar turned of her communicator and smirked at her spark-mate and his brother. "Uh… Did he say when?"

The twins snickered. But their amusement was short lived; Nightstar's commlink activated again and a very annoyed Ratchet was heard yelling out of it. "Nightstar, get back here right now! I mean it, or I will come out there, drag you back and tie you down! Sideswipe! You glitched up son of the inferno! You were supposed to take care of her!"

"Relax Ratchet," Said Nightstar. "It's just a scratch, nowhere near my spark."

"**I DON'T CARE!**" Roared the medic. "Just get down here now!"

"Yes Mother," Replied Nightstar cynically, turning off the communicator before Ratchet could yell some more. "I probably should go, shouldn't I?"

"Yeah, Ratchet would actually do that." Nodded Sideswipe. He reached over and pulled her down though, making her rest her head and shoulders on his legs.

Nightstar shifted her head contently in his lap. Sunstreaker looked irritably down at his hands. Why did they do that? "Aren't you supposed to be going back to base?" He asked.

Nightstar gave him a look. "Yeah, but what do I care?"

"Ratchet will lock you up you know."

"I'd like to see him try." Nightstar closed her optics and dozed off, much to Sunstreaker's annoyance. The yellow Lamborghini was starting to really resent Nightstar; she seemed to be the center of everyone's attention, day in, and day out. Sunstreaker, being the vain mech he was, found this rather unacceptable. Not to mention that Sunstreaker hated it that his partner in crime was no longer as fun as he used to be.

Sideswipe noticed his brother's angry expression. "You know Sunny's right Nightstar, Ratchet will have our heads as trophies. Come on, let's get you home."

"Oh alright," Nightstar stood up and transformed. But as they drove off, she mischievously accelerated and left the twins behind. "You boys are slow!"

"Hey!" Neither twin could refuse a challenge and soon all three Italian imports were racing down the straight road, the air they displaced causing the green cornstalks on either side of the road to whip around and the gold wheat to bend as if in high wind. Nightstar loved the sights. She happily passed the twins and left them in the dust.

"You guys need faster alt modes!" She taunted cheerfully. She turned back onto the highway and slowed down enough to avoid crashing into a white Volkswagen. The driver shook his fist at her. "Humph, humans."

Sideswipe pulled up beside her and Sunstreaker behind. He noticed some human drivers staring open-mouthed at him and the other two. "Looks like we've got admirers. Like that's a surprise. Handsome as I am."

Nightstar snorted and accelerated enough to make her engine heard. A few passengers in nearby cars started clapping. "Humans are funny," she said. "Come on, let's go make some more humans' days." She drove happily by a Cadillac and was amused to see the occupants staring; one guy was actually drooling. Then she saw some thing that really got her attention. "Wow, guys, Lookit that car!"

The twins drove up beside her to see what had to be the most gorgeous Lamborghini ever; it looked more like a fighter jet than a car. "Suddenly I feel not so handsome," Said Sunstreaker. "What is that?"

Sideswipe looked it up on his connection to the Internet. "It's called a Lamborghini Reventon, only twenty were made. I figure that no one would notice two more though…"

Sunstreaker drove up as close as possible to the Reventon without alarming the driver. "Pity it ain't in our colours, but black's pretty hot. I'll store the data for later so we don't confuse the humans by converting from Countachs to Reventons."

Sideswipe laughed and happily drove up on the Reventon's other side, his holographic driver waving at the Reventon's owner. The man looked surprised, but flattered by the attention, he waved back and smiled as he realized that there was a bit of a Italian import parade going on. Nightstar laughed at the twins and turned off towards the Autobot base. Reluctantly, the twins followed.

Ratchet was waiting for her, his expression furious. Sideswipe, remembering the CMO's penchant for throwing tools, quickly drove up beside Nightstar. The femme transformed and blinked innocently up at the medic. "Hi Ratchet, what's new?"

"What's new? Well, there's your injury for one, your attitude for another and-"

"Hey relax Ratchet," Nightstar tilted her head innocently to the side, giving the medic an adorable puppy-dog look. Even the grumpy Ratchet was not immune. He blinked, rage forgotten in his confusion. Once again, Nightstar did the Cybertonian version of batting her eyelashes, much to poor Ratchet's bewilderment; the femme knew how to confuse males, it had been a necessary skill among the Decepticons. It was as another female Decepticon had told her, "love your enemies, it confuses them." Nightstar had always laughed at that.

Ratchet made a throat-clearing sound and gestured at Nightstar's side. "Does that hurt?"

"Not really." Nightstar answered. Ratchet leaned over and touched it; Nightstar winced ever so slightly. Ratchet nodded.

"Good, but I will fix it seeing as there is nothing else to do." He turned and walked back into the base, one hand on Nightstar shoulder, steering her into the medbay. Sideswipe exchanged amused glances with Sunstreaker; they'd really have to remember that cute expression Nightstar had used.

Ratchet had Nightstar lie down so he could fix her side. "You are as bad as your spark-mate."

"Well, why do you think he likes me?" Replied Nightstar sweetly.

"Don't give me that." Muttered the CMO, still somewhat confounded by the femme's charm. "You'd better raise your sparkling right."

Nightstar gave Ratchet a really ugly look. Ratchet immediately regretted what he'd said; but it was a bit too late to take it back. "Are you suggesting that I'll be a bad caretaker? I've freaking gone through hell for of it, I'm not going to abandon it any time, ever."

Embarrassed, Ratchet quickly fixed Nightstar's damage and sent her out; now was not the time to delay her with a check up on her spark. Angrily, Nightstar stalked out.

* * *

Prowl noticed Nightstar's expression and wisely stepped out of her way. He knew better than to mess with some who was baring her teeth. He wondered what had upset her. He didn't register the red glint in her optics.

* * *

Sunstreaker swung his leg low, trying to knock Sideswipe down. But his twins jumped over the sweeping leg and lashed out with a wicked blow the Sunstreaker's head. The yellow twin stumbled back and Sideswipe straightened up. "I win bro." 

"Damn."

Nightstar strode in, her optics still glimmering red. She leaned angrily against the polished grey wall. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe looked up at her curiously. "You're optics are colour swapping." Noted Sunstreaker.

Nightstar gave him an angry look. "Thanks, I didn't realize that," She growled. Sunstreaker wisely shut up.

"What's up?" Asked Sideswipe; Nightstar didn't get angry easily.

"Ratchet suggested that I would not care for my sparkling." Came the snarled reply.

Sideswipe started. "He didn't."

"He did." She growled furiously. Sunstreaker winced in pity for the medic; Nightstar was very protective of her unborn sparkling, and the twins knew it. The mere mention that she did not care about it would most often result in evil look and cold treatment for days. Sideswipe walked over to Nightstar and gently held her shoulders; like with his twin, Sideswipe was the only person who could safely come close to the femme when she was in a bad mood.

Nightstar irritably looked away, but she didn't react aggressively at least. Sideswipe gently rubbed her left shoulder and then stepped away, knowing that she'd cheer up on her own. Nightstar watched as the twins squared off again. They certainly loved sparring.

This time, Sunstreaker won. He sent Sideswipe reeling from a well-aimed blow to the chest. Nightstar watched expressionlessly as Sunstreaker turned away and Sideswipe pounced on his twin; she stepped out of the way as the resulting wrestling match tumbled her way and finally cracked a smile at the impossible sight of each twin holding the other in a headlock at the same time.

"How do you guys do that?" She asked.

"I dunno," replied Sideswipe. "But it hurts." Nightstar snickered and stepped over to separate the twins, knowing that neither would let go otherwise. Once he'd been forced to let go of his brother, Sideswipe playfully grabbed his spark-mate and pinned her to the ground, much to her displeasure.

"Hey! Sideswipe, let me go!"

"Not a chance hun." He replied affectionately. Nightstar sighed and rolled over, making Sideswipe fall down. She then rolled to her feet and put one foot on his back.

"Victory." She proclaimed. Sunstreaker couldn't help but laugh at the scene; Sideswipe was leaning thoughtfully on his hand as if to say that he was only humouring the femme, which he was of course.

* * *

One thing Prowl has to admit about the twins was their skill; he'd always remarked upon their sheer and brutal ability to win a fight. It unnerved him that they could be so vicious; they surpassed many Decepticons in aggression. He had come to accept it. He had learned that it was just who they were. Both twins were still Autobots at spark; he'd seen the capacity for self-sacrifice in them, the kindness they were capable of. But they were still well known for one thing: being as, if not more, ruthless as the average Decepticon. 

Their bodies had been built for major strength, and their personalities had been created with a bit of instability. Prowl wondered why the Allspark had given the twins such power and brilliance, only to corrupt it. Perhaps it was the result of the fact that they had originally been a single spark that had split, it was impossible to know.

And what about this Nightstar? Prowl had taken an instinctive liking to the clever femme. She had a smart gleam to her optics and a lively persona. To be frank, Prowl also couldn't help but to admire her superstructure too; she was a gorgeous piece of art; delicately shaped, but powerful and cunning in battle. Prowl had to respect the femme for her fortitude. He felt a bit protective of her because she could most definitely be classified as endangered, and was so important to the survival of the Transformer species. Yet he could tell his protectiveness was unnecessary; Nightstar had proven herself more than capable of protecting herself.

At least, that what he told himself until he heard her scream.

-------

Nightstar sipped thoughtfully at the glass of energon in her hand. She was hanging out with the twins in Sunstreaker's quarters, watching them play a human video game they'd set up called Halo 3. She thought it was rather ridiculous, but didn't say anything. "Those Reventon modes work out for you?" She asked.

"Do they ever!" Answered Sunstreaker enthusiastically. "We can go so fast, and are we ever hot!"

"Can't disagree there," Smiled Nightstar, her optics resting on Sideswipe. She thought it was funny how seriously he was focusing on the game. She felt a powerful twinge in her spark and winced; Ratchet had confined her to base again last week for that reason. He expected her to be finished sparking very soon. She knew that it would be a painful process, but she was still looking forward to having her own little one to raise.

Smiling to herself, Nightstar wondered for the hundredth time whether the sparkling would be male or female, and what to name it? She wondered if an earthly name would be appropriate, considering that this would be the first sparkling of earth. She irritably narrowed her left optic as her spark twinged again; she wondered why the last stage of sparking had to be so damn uncomfortable.

"You alright?" Asked Sunstreaker.

"Fine, just another twinge." She replied shortly.

Then she dropped her glass of energon as searing pain ripped through her. With a scream of pure agony, Nightstar collapsed to the floor.

* * *

--

* * *

Antoher cliffhanger, sorry folks XD. Anyways, please R&R for me

I love the little fight scene, Primus, Nightstar is vicious eh?

Comments are welcomed, creative critisms is thanked and flames are put on the G1 Lambo twins' hit list. They live here at Nexus with me, I warn you.


	4. Birth

Sorry to have left you guys with a cliffhanger there (I'm like addicted to them though) anyways, here's chapter 4; Birth

Sorry it's so much shorter than all the other chapters.

* * *

Nightstar dropped her glass of Energon and collapsed to the floor with a shriek of pain. She curled up around her spark. It felt like her spark wanted to break out of her body. She screamed again.

Sideswipe grabbed Nightstar and tried to get her to uncurl. "Nightstar!" He bent down over her, tying to see what was wrong. Sunstreaker looked on helplessly for a few seconds and then sprinted out, looking for Ratchet. Sideswipe pushed on Nightstar's shoulder. Reluctantly, she stretched out. Sideswipe reached over to touch the spot above her spark but yanked his hand away. "It's burning hot!" His hand was physically unharmed, yet, when he'd touched her chest, it had felt like he thrust his hand into a smelter.

"Sideswipe… It hurts… I can't… make it stop…" She rolled across the steel floor.

Nightstar whimpered and curled up again, hugging her legs tightly. Sideswipe helplessly held her shoulders. "It's okay, you'll be okay…"

Sunstreaker dashed into medbay. He scanned the room, desperate to find the CMO. But the medic was nowhere in sight. "Dammit Ratchet! Where are you?" He ran out, praying Ratchet was in the central room. If Ratchet wasn't in the communal area, where else could he be? He streaked into the room and skidded to a stop. "Ratchet!"

The medic looked up from his seat, somewhat alarmed by Sunstreaker's agitation. "What is it?"

"Nightstar's screaming and freaking over something! She just collapsed and-" Nightstar helpfully chose that instant to scream again. The agony was impossible to miss. "You've got to help her!" Ratchet got up and was at the door faster than one would think possible.

"Where?"

"My quarters!" Gasped Sunstreaker, realizing his systems were overheating. He bent over and let cool air circulate through his vents. The medic yelled something and Sunstreaker stood up quickly. Ratchet snapped a terse order for him to go and get the medic's tools out and to clear anyone in the medbay out, then he took off for Sunstreaker's quarters at a run.

The other Autobots looked at each other in consternation. What could be happening to the femme? Nightstar was very popular; the mechs liked her independent and cunning attitude, she was a fellow soldier as well as the hope for the entire species.

* * *

In Sunstreaker's quarters, Sideswipe was gripping his spark-mate's shoulders desperately. "Nightstar… Nightstar," He called to her fearfully in Cybertonian. "Nightstar, it's alright, it's alright…" Nightstar managed to look up at him. Her jaw was trembling and her arms shaking. Sideswipe had never seen her so obviously terrified; Nightstar was a fearless warrior, and confident fighter. She had been a Decepticon assassin for most of her life; trained to ignore pain, trained to be emotionless. Yet here she was, screaming and trembling in pain and fear. He knew that if she was scared, he should be.

"Sideswipe," She managed to whisper. "It hurts… make it stop… Please." Helpless, Sideswipe hugged her to him, even though the heat radiating off her spark hurt, he tried frantically to comfort her. Nightstar gripped him with surprising strength, her pain and fear giving her extra power.

"It's okay, it's okay," murmured Sideswipe, trying to reassure himself as much as Nightstar. "Ratchet can fix anything, he always has before. Nightstar, you'll be okay." _You have to_, he thought, holding her close as she writhed and struggled against the agony in her spark.

Nightstar started to scream again, this time so loud that Sideswipe winced in actual physical pain as the high sound hit his audios. Her grip suddenly went slack and she forced her scream down with a chocking sob. "Please…" She whispered, no longer aware where she was. "It hurts too much…" She began shaking uncontrollably.

Her vice-like grip returned and she clung to Sideswipe's arm like a drowning human; the Mech felt the armour bend under her seemingly delicate fingers; it hurt, but worse was his fear that she was dying. He didn't hear the door open, nor did he see the medic's shadow as he came into the room.

Sideswipe looked up with relief as Ratchet pushed him out of the way. Nightstar was gritting her teeth, trying not to cry out in pain again. Ratchet forced her to straighten out. "Hold her." He growled at Sideswipe. He checked something on her chest and surprisingly, he smiled. "It's alright, you just have a lively sparkling that wants out."

Nightstar jerked her head up to look at the medic. "It hurts." She whispered, optics unusually bright.

Ratchet nodded. "You'll be okay, just relax…" He gently lifted her up. "Sideswipe, I sent your brother down to medbay already, go down and help him get my scalpels out."

Sideswipe hesitated. "What's wrong with her? It she going to be alright?"

"She's fine, it's just that the sparkling wants out and wants a body of it's own now," Answered the medic soothingly. He was a bit concerned by how much pain the femme was in, but he needed to reassure both Nightstar and Sideswipe. "Relax. The sooner she's in medbay, the sooner she stops hurting. Now go!"

Sideswipe ran as fast as he could down to the medical sector of the base, not even aware that the other Autobots had all come down to see what all the screaming was about. Ratchet however, was in no mood for an audience. "OUT! All of you; yes even you Optimus. If you want to help, get out of my way!"

The others moved back and out of the way, but Nightstar's pain-filled whimpers were impossible to ignore. Ratchet carried her quickly down to the medbay and scowled at Optimus as the Autobot leader looked inside with concern. "I said OUT!" The medic roared. Wisely, Optimus retreated. Ratchet saw that the twins had set out every single blade, knife, and surgical tool that the medic owned. "Sunstreaker, lock the damn door. Sideswipe, come here and help me hold her down."

Ratchet put Nightstar down and had Sideswipe hold the femme's shoulders. "This will hurt for a bit," He said, for both Nightstar's and Sideswipe's benefit. "Okay, a hell of a lot. But don't move, understand?" Nightstar nodded weakly, her face contorted in pain. "And Sideswipe, don't let her move, even though she will fight and scream and struggle" Sideswipe nodded, if he were human, his face would have been white. As it were, his optics slanted unusually, showing his concern.

Sunstreaker made to walk out, figuring he'd just be in the way, but Ratchet had other ideas. "You, Sunshine, get over here," Obediently, Sunstreaker came over. It was a mark of his concern that he didn't react to the name-calling. "Hold her legs for me, keep her from moving around." Sunstreaker nodded and grabbed Nightstar's legs.

Ratchet picked up one of his scalpels and carefully cut into Nightstar's chest. The femme gasped in pain and tried to yank herself free, but Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's weight kept her motionless. The medic swiftly opened Nightstar's chestplate and then he put down the scalpel and picked up a delicate laser tool. With precision born from eons of experience, Ratchet cut into the femme's spark casing.

The effect was immediate; Nightstar relaxed. Her optics still glowed with pain, but it was now controllable. "That's better." She said weakly.

"It hurts from the pressure of an extra complete spark." Replied Ratchet. "You two, back off." The twins stepped back to give Ratchet working room.

The CMO gently carved the casing open. With a thoughtful sigh, he removed the top of it, revealing a bright light; Nightstar's spark and the new spark within.

But something was wrong, Sideswipe could see it in the lines of disbelief etched in Ratchet's face. Had something gone wrong? Was Nightstar dying? The scarlet warrior felt his spark constrict in dread.

Slowly, Ratchet reached into Nightstar's chest. When he pulled his shaking hands out, all of Sideswipe's fears evaporated, and the red mech grinned evilly, as if he'd planned this little surprise all along, not like he could have.

Sunstreaker took one look at the medic and let out a roar of laughter at the delightful sight. Even Nightstar managed to raise her head and let out a weak giggle at Ratchet's expression.

Gently cradled in Ratchet's hands were two glowing sparks. "No…" Moaned the medic. "Not twins… Not again…"

* * *

Outside the door, all the other Autobots had heard was the sudden explosion of laughter. They glanced at each other, unsure what to think. "What was that?" Asked Bumblebee in concern.

Ironhide shrugged. "I dunno, but it's a good thing right?"

"I hope so." Answered Prowl.

* * *

Ratchet sighed. "Good thing I always have more than one blank laying around." He examined both sparks with curiosity. "This one's a mech," He looked at the other spark, which glowed much brighter. "But this one's a femme."

"Twins of a different gender?" Asked Sideswipe in disbelief. He was resting one hand on Nightstar's forehead.

"I've never heard of this happening before," Replied Ratchet. "But evidently it's possible." He carefully put each spark into a blank body. Each was about knee-high to him and without weapons or heavy armour. "There, they'll wake up in a few minutes."

Nightstar sighed softly, exhaustion setting in. Ratchet sealed her spark compartment and fixed her chest. "You, get some rest." Nightstar closed her optics and fell asleep instantly.

Sunstreaker walked over to get a better look at the sparklings. "So which is which?"

Ratchet pointed to the one that was blue with angular arms and legs. "That one's the male. The green one is the female." The little femme was a bit rounder than her brother. She made a squeak and sat up, looking around brightly.

Sideswipe smiled. "Hey kiddo, welcome to the land of the living." The tiny automaton looked at him and squeaked again. She slid down to the floor and tried to run towards him, but instead she tripped and fell. Laughing, Ratchet bent down and picked her up.

"Seems healthy enough, strong to... Most sparklings take longer before they try to walk." He set her back on the table before turning to the other. "Ah, you're awake too." The little mech looked at him sagely.

The female tried again; with an extraordinarily loud squeal she jumped down and this time succeeded in her bid to pounce on Sideswipe. Taken off guard, the red mech fell down. Laughing, he gently roughhoused his daughter. "Agh! You got me!"

Sunstreaker watched his brother in disbelief. "What are you doing?"

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Laughed Sideswipe, sitting up with the sparkling clinging to his shoulders. She made a clicking noise and sighed sleepily.

Ratchet smirked. "Little one already tired herself out. Put her down to rest." Sideswipe put the sparkling down, only for her to pounce on Sunstreaker.

"Squeeeeeeeeeee!" She clambered up the confused mech's arm and perched on his head. Sideswipe howled with laughter.

"She's mine alright!" He grinned. Ratchet shook his head in disbelief.

"Primus almighty," He said aloud. "Why must I suffer so?" The small mech made a clicking sound and grabbed Ratchet's arm. "Yes little one?"

The sparkling raised his arms, asking to be picked up. Ratchet was not immune to the time male's charm and bent down and lifted the sparkling into the air. He looked at the mech's optics, a bit surprised. "He has silver optics! That doesn't happen too often."

Sideswipe took his little one off Sunstreaker's head before the yellow warrior had a fit. "She's got gold ones," He noted. "Won't they change colour?"

"Only Allspark-created Transformers' optics will change colour. Femme-borns optics will remain the same unless surgically changed." Replied Ratchet. He examined both sparklings thoughtfully. "Fitting that the first sparklings of Earth are so different," He murmured. "They're our future, the hope for our species. It's fitting that they are unique."

Nightstar rolled over and tiredly opened her optics. "Loud." She muttered groggily, her systems still in recharge mode.

Sideswipe grinned at her. "Sorry, the little ones are rather excitable." He held up the small female for her to see. "See?"

Nightstar smiled. "Yeah." She closed her optics again and fell back asleep. Maybe realizing that she was also tired, the small femme in her "father's" arm started squirming until she was loose. Then she climbed up onto the table beside her creator and curled up and fell asleep. Ratchet walked over and put the small male, who was still clicking happily, next to his twin where he also curled up for a rest.

Sunstreaker grinned at the CMO. "So Ratchet, how's life treating ya?"

Ratchet gave the yellow Lamborghini twin an evil glare. "Shut. Up."

* * *

Wheee! That's it for now. I need to work on my other stories. But don't worry, I'll work on this one again later, this is just the end to the first story arc. I just reallly need to get back to work on "Never Again" .

Okay, you all knew that Nightstar was gonna have twins, didn't you? But I couldn't resist Poor, poor Ratchet. Ha ha.

Okay, so, also, I don't really have any name ideas for the sparklings, so suggestions would be nice

Comments are loved, constructive critissm is thanked and flames... well, those just get a couple of giant baby robots unleashed on them XD


	5. Littleuns

Squee! chapter 5! Well enjoy... I hope. I'm glad that peoplle are liking this.. and thanks to all those reviewers I got one nice review mentioning that it was cool that my OC actually has a personality of her own. And thanks for that, I try really hard. I recently ran Nightstar through a Mary-Sue test, the results wern't too bad, although she got a lot of points for her name (Bah). My OC Fastrack had a HORRIBLE score 15, so I did some re-working (Which is not an excuse if you're reading Never again and are wondering why it's taking so damn long to update) on the other hand.. my third OC Siren, who has yet to make an appearance, scored -22 which totally ROCKS!

Anyways.. On to the story. Thanks for all the sggestions for naming the sparklings people, but I went with ones that were suggested by a friend because I found an amusing way to use them...

* * *

Ratchet ran a fourth scan over the sleeping femme. He couldn't believe that Nightstar had managed to spark twins after all the hardships she been going through. At least that explained why she'd been in so much pain. Shaking his head, Ratchet looked up to see where the Lamborghini brothers had gone. Sunstreaker was sitting irritably in the corner and Sideswipe was resting on another table, one arm draped over his optics. Ratchet smiled faintly; the red Mech could probably feel his spark-mate's total exhaustion.

Sunstreaker glanced over at the CMO. "Why can't I go again?"

"Because if you open the door, the other Autobots will come in too see the sparklings, and I'll have to yell to get them to leave, and that'll wake them up," Ratchet indicated Nightstar and the sleeping sparklings with his head. "And they shouldn't be woken for quite a few hours. I still can't believe the femme survived the ordeal of sparking twins with so little energy."

Sunstreaker grinned a bit. "Yeah, well… You really think I'd have let a weakling be my brother's spark-mate? Nightstar's as tough as any mech, tougher, I'd bet."

"I'd say so." Agreed Ratchet. He leaned over and took a good look at the female sparkling. "This one seemed very lively. Few sparklings are that energetic for weeks after sparking."

"Hunh… You expect me to add to that? Allspark-created here, remember? I got no idea about anything to do with sparklings other than they're tiny and annoying usually, but you can't blast them." Ratchet rolled his optics.

"How could I forget? I can only pray that the little ones are more like their creatoress than creator."

"Did you just make that word up?"

Ratchet scowled.

- - -

Ironhide had gone back to his quarters two hours ago. Prowl had retired back to his work, which left only Prime and Bumblebee waiting outside the medbay to see the newest Autobot, or as they would find out, Autobots.

Bumblebee let himself sit on the floor and was leaning against the wall thoughtfully. He was very curious to see what a sparkling looked like. He never seen one as he'd been the last Sparkling of Cybertron. That struck something in him. "Optimus?"

"Yes Bumblebee?"

"It just hit me… I was the last-"

"Sparkling of Cybertron, yes." Interrupted Optimus. "Why does that mean anything new now?"

"I'm fully grown, I couldn't find even my youngling years, forget sparkling. It just hit me how much of a miracle this is. Or how much of a tragedy it would be if…" He trailed off. Bumblebee believed the human idea that naming an evil gave it power. Optimus nodded solemnly.

"Yes, it will be as interesting a challenge to raise this sparkling as it was you."

"I was a challenge?"

"Not in the difficult sense. More that seeing as you were so special, you had everyone's undivided attention whenever you wanted it. Everyone wanted to show that he was best friends with the last youngling of the species. I was somewhat concerned you'd become spoiled as these humans say."

Bumblebee chuckled. "Come to think of it… I always did get whatever I wanted…"

Optimus nodded in amusement and both mechs returned to their private thoughts.

- - - -

Nightstar slowly opened her optics. Primus, did her chest and spark ever hurt. Then her optics slid into focus and she remembered why. Happily, Nightstar settled herself back down and wrapped an arm over her sleeping creations. As she closed her optics, she mentally added another reason to the list of why Autobots were better than Decepticons; the Con's wouldn't have let her rest, they'd have just sent her back to work, exhaustion or no.

She heard footsteps and pretended to be asleep, hoping that a) whomever it was would buy it and leave her alone to think, or b) would see through her façade but still pretend not to.

"I saw you sit up, now stop pretending and sit up again so I can look at you." Damn, trust the crabby medic to notice and not be empathetic. With a tired sigh, Nightstar sat up. Ratchet checked the repairs he'd done to Nightstar's chest after he'd cut in to get the new sparks. "Good."

"Can I go back to sleep now?" Nightstar yawned to emphasize her desire to rest, but Ratchet was not impressed.

"No, and stop trying to get pity, we don't yawn and you know it!"

"I feel like slag Ratchet, let me sleep."

"In a minute, the longer you argue, the later you get back to sleep."

Nightstar surrendered and let Ratchet look her over. In a few minutes he was satisfied and walked away. Nightstar lay back down, and as she closed her optics, felt an affectionate touch on her shoulder. "Good job," Whispered Sideswipe. "I thought Ratchet was going to lose it when he found out you had twins."

Nightstar smiled faintly as she drifted off into blessed recharge.

- - - - - - - - -

"Well?" Bumblebee looked up to see Prowl walking slowly down the hall.

"We still aren't allowed in. Are you done already?"

Prowl nodded. "Yes, I got plenty done in a short time."

The door lock clicked. Simultaneously, all the heads turned towards it. Sunstreaker poked his head out. "Ratchet says that you guys can't make any noise if you want to come in and see."

Optimus, Bumblebee and Prowl all nodded and came in. Nightstar was sitting up on the table. She looked over at the Autobots and slowly looked at each, as if trying to comprehend each. In reality, she was still tired and a bit disoriented. But Ratchet had assured her that it would soon pass.

"So, where's the little one?" Asked Optimus curiously.

He got a rather loud reply. "Squeeeeeeeeeee!" With a infantile war cry, the newly sparked femme went streaking by the three Autobots and out the door.

"Slagging!" Ratchet swore.

"Eeeeee!" Came the happy sound of the tiny femme.

"Yeah, yeah, now come one," Ironhide came in with a rather annoyed expression and the female tucked under one arm. "I don't remember them being so shrill," He announced irritably, he shut the door with his foot before putting the tiny Autobot down. "Go jump on somebody else."

Optimus laughed. The small female looked at him curiously before deciding to go find a more familiar presence; she climbed up Sideswipe's leg, much to general amusement. Sideswipe grabbed her and held her laughingly.

"Now if only the other one was energetic." He said.

"'Other one'?" Repeated Prowl, feeling a bit of foreboding.

"Here." Muttered Ratchet, raising his arm to reveal the small mech hanging off it. Happily, the male gripped on tightly and made a sighing sound of pleasure.

What was said next wasn't very loud, but seeing as four different mechs said it at the same time, it seemed deafening. "TWINS!?"

The reaction was not pleasant. Both sparklings fell silent and stared at the mechs, optics glowing in bright surprise. Ratchet had the sense to cover his audio receptors. Then the tiny transformers made a most magnificent sound. "AIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Every bot in the room quickly covered his or her ears. Ratchet shut down his own and quickly grabbed both sparklings and tapped their heads gently until they quietened. Once they'd stopped, he handed them to Nightstar. He reactivated his Audios and looked around as his fellow Autobots sheepishly removed their hands from their head. "Now what have we learned?"

"No loud noises near these two unless we want louder noisemakers." Replied Sunstreaker, wincing visibly. The yellow warrior's Audios were extremely sensitive.

"Exactly."

Nightstar stood up, wobbled a bit, and sat back down. "I still can't walk."

"Then stop trying." Said Ratchet coolly. Nightstar scowled and shifted irritably.

The small male walked slowly towards the Autobots, clicking quietly. Bumblebee curiously knelt down to get a better look at him. The sparkling tilted his head to the side inquisitively. "Cree?" He said.

"Pardon?" Asked Bumblebee.

Ratchet looked up. "His vocal processor isn't yet developed, nor is his knowledge of language."

"Oh." Bumblebee smiled and stood up. The small male by his legs wanted attention though, and resorted to drastic measures to get it. He grabbed Bumblebee's leg and made a very good attempt to bite the Autobot, despite lacking teeth or even a mouth that was made for biting.

There was a roar of laughter. Perhaps sensing approval, the small mech tried again, to increased amusement. Bumblebee wasn't sure how to react to being treated like food. He looked down at the sparkling in confusion. "Er?"

Snorting with laughter, Sideswipe walked over and picked the minute Transformer up. "Save it for the Decepticons." He said, grinning in amusement. His sparkling gave him a wide-optic look.

"Kai?" The little one asked innocently.

Prime shook his head; he'd forgotten how charming sparklings could be. He walked over to Nightstar and nodded at her with a smile. "How are you?"

"Tired, bored, and annoyed."

Prime chortled; Nightstar was irascible as always. He nodded at her and turned away to leave. Then he paused. "What are you planning to call them?"

Nightstar shook her head, a bit surprised. "Me name them? But what could I call them?"

Optimus smiled. "I'm sure you'll come up with good names." He walked out and shut the door.

Nightstar looked over at her creations, what could she name them? She watched as her "son" once again tried his biting trick, this time on Prowl. The tactician's mouth upturned slightly and he gently pushed the sparkling away. The male streaked over to Ironhide and jumped up the warrior's leg happily. When Ironhide made a grab for him, the small male mischievously ran away and climbed Sunstreaker's leg, much to the yellow mech's annoyance.

"Why you little!"

"Squeeeee!" With a squeal of delight, the tiny female also pounced on Sunstreaker, catching him off guard and knocking him to the floor.

Ironhide snickered to see the yellow Lamborghini suffering so. "It's about time you suffered." He said in amusement as the sparklings crawled all over Sunstreaker's precious paintjob.

Nightstar snickered. She carefully dropped her feet to the ground again and shakily stood up. With slow, careful steps, she walked over to the furious Reventon. "Relax Sunny, they're too small to damage your paint," She bent over and picked up the male sparkling. "I have a name for you now. I'll call you Nitro unless anyone…" She glanced at her spark-mate for approval. Sideswipe grinned. Nightstar smiled back briefly. "Nitro it is then." She put her newly named creation back down on top of the irate Sunstreaker, much to everyone but the yellow mech's amusement. "There you go Nitro, you can keep playing now." Nitro happily resumed his sport of yanking on Sunstreaker's arms. Nightstar looked thoughtfully at her female offspring, but still couldn't come up with anything. "Jadestar maybe?" She thought aloud.

"Scrap metal!" Snarled Sunstreaker. "If you don't get them both Offa me!" Nightstar giggled and picked up the female whilst Sideswipe laughingly hoisted Nitro into the air.

Ratchet shook his head; he'd been enjoying watching Sunstreaker suffer oh so very much, too bad it was over. "Nitro eh? Well…" The small mech wiggled free of Sideswipe's grip and ran over to a table, promptly collided head first with it and fell over, an adorable look of confusion gracing his features. Ratchet chortled. "The name fits. He's a fast little son of a glitch."

"Hey!" Nightstar gave Ratchet an affronted look.

Ratchet merely grinned. "I didn't mean you." Sideswipe sighed and rolled his optics at his spark-mate, who was giggling madly at his expense.

"Aie aye aie!" Yelped the sparkling femme, wanting attention. Ironhide winced at the sound and decided to leave. He therefore left.

Nightstar gave her "daughter" an exasperated look. "Yes?" The sparkling smiled now that she was center of attention. Nightstar sighed. "I'm tempted to call you Alarm." There were a few laughs at that.

The small female giggled and suddenly jumped off the table and streaked into Ratchet's office. Nitro got up and ran after her. There was a resounding crash.

"Rgh…." Growling, Ratchet walked into his office to find… The medic's ill temper vanished and he laughed. Gingerly, he picked up the still nameless femme and carried her back out. "I do believe I have a name suggestion." He said, holding up the small transformer.

Sunstreaker snorted at the sight of his brother's sparkling; she'd evidently broken Ratchet's paint containers, she was completely covered in numerous different neon shades of red, blue, white and green. But somehow, it actually looked pretty good.

Nightstar's optics widened in amusement. "Rainbow?" She asked; voice chocked with mirth.

Ratchet shook his head. "Neon," he answered. "She's bright, vibrant, especially with her new paintjob," There was a general round of snickers. "And she's hard to ignore. All are very common traits of the Noble gas know as neon here on Earth."

"Neon…" Sideswipe tried the word. He decided that he liked it. And the CMO certainly was right; the name fit perfectly. He glanced at Nightstar, she grinned back in amusement and approval. "Neon it is then." Said Sideswipe happily.

Finally named, Neon decided that she wanted to go explore some more, but Ratchet had other ideas. He gripped her a bit tighter, just enough so that she couldn't escape, and carried her back into his office to wash the extra paint off and to shoo Nitro out before he to gained a new look.

Bumblebee leaned against a wall and just laughed. He decided that he liked sparklings very, very much.

* * *

- - - - - - - -

"I never really told you Autobots about myself, did I?" Nightstar looked patiently at the ceiling as Ratchet did yet another check-up on her. He was bound and determined to make sure she was in perfect shape.

"Not really," Answered Ratchet. "And why do you say "You Autobots"…" He trailed off. "Oh." He said simply.

"Never met a Decepticon femme before then?" Nightstar laughed. She'd decided to let her past be known; sparking two Autobots last month had most certainly assured her a place here, besides, she was tired of pretending to be something she was not.

Ratchet shook his head. "I thought that those stories of female Decepticons were only that; stories. So you were a Decepticon?"

"Oh yes… An assassin to be precise." Ratchet stopped what he was doing and slowly looked up to make eye contact with the femme.

"An assassin?" He repeated. Nightstar nodded, wondering what the medic would do. "Well… Primus." He said, shaking his head. He went back to his work of checking Nightstar's chassis for damage.

Nightstar narrowed her optics in annoyance. She hated the awkward silences. "My name's Nightstar Ratchet, not Primus."

The CMO started. "My apologies Nightstar, I was just trying to sort out where you would have been in the Decepticon ranks…"

Nightstar scowled, not at Ratchet, but at the memory that she was about to relate. "Let me help you. I was an advisor to Megatron, a "trusted" one." Ratchet looked at her in consternation. "I was a skilled warrior, and that's why I lasted so long… I didn't realize that Megatron viewed me as much of a threat to his power as her saw the Autobot femmes. At least, I didn't realize until he ordered me deported to a genocide camp."

Ratchet shook his head and made a small noise of sympathy. "Why did you join the Decepticons?" He asked. "Or was your creator also a Decepticon femme?"

"Oh no, I was Allspark-created," Answered Nightstar. "But I met the Decepticons first. I enjoyed the freedom at first. And I simply adored the direct way of dealing with things. You have a problem with someone, maim them." She looked at Ratchet's face. "You don't seem to shocked, I was actually expecting a bigger reaction… Not that I'm disappointed."

"You're talking to the mech who was there when your spark-mate and his brother were sparked by the Allspark. Primus, I've known those two their entire lives; they're Autobots and they deal with their problems that way."

Nightstar laughed a bit. "That's probably why we click." She sighed and settled down. Ratchet made to open a panel on her stomach, but Nightstar decided that she didn't need yet ANOTHER freaking check-up. She rolled over and stood up. Ratchet growled.

A grappling match ensued as the medic tried to get the femme to lie down for her examination and the femme stubbornly tried to get the medic to give up. This went on for at least an hour.

* * *

Bumblebee made to walk into medbay, but the sight of an irritated Ratchet halted him. The medic was still attempting to do his check-up on Nightstar, but the femme was stubbornly resisting, lying on her side with an annoyed expression. Ratchet kept trying to get her to lie on her back but what she lacked in strength against the medic's arms, she made up for in cunning; every time he'd loosen his grip to pick something up, Nightstar would jerk herself loose. Finally, in a fit of impatient temper, Ratchet stopped being gentle and slammed her down onto her back. "Hold still!"

Nightstar did not like being forced like that, and she expressed her displeasure magnificently. Ratchet suddenly found himself pinned by his vocal processor to another table. Nightstar leaned forward and glared into Ratchet's optics. "I'm getting tired of your stupid examinations! I'm fine already, what more do you need to know?"

Bumblebee felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Sideswipe. With a grin, Bumblebee indicated the mayhem in the medbay. "Your spark-mate's even better at annoying Ratchet than you and Sunstreaker."

"Why do you think she's my spark-mate? It ain't because she's a diva," Chortled Sideswipe. "What're you doing here?"  
"Ratchet was going to finish fixing my vocal processor."

"Let's go in and give them both a break." Laughed Sideswipe. Nodding, Bumblebee stepped forwards. Both mechs walked in as Ratchet managed to shove Nightstar back on to the table. He secured her there with powerful cables.

"Overkill much," Noted Sideswipe. Ratchet straightened up and gave the red mech a nasty look. "Don't mind me doc, I'm just here to see ma hottie girlfriend."

It took Ratchet a few seconds to comprehend what Sideswipe had said. "I see you've picked up on human speech patterns very well." He noted dourly.

Sideswipe grinned. "I like the local culture Ratch, what can I say?"

"I hardly consider the city slums and street racing epitomes of human culture."

Nightstar joined in on the banter. "Au Contraire, Herr Doctor, the downtown eastside is the cultural center. If you sift through the dross, you'd find that nowhere else has such a mashup of different ideologies. Everything from the basest, most primitive human compulsions to the fucking richest, most corrupt and genius humans out there."

Ratchet had Bumblebee tilt his head so that the medic could open his throat. "You as well? Don't let your sparklings hear you talking in such crude dialects." Nightstar and Sideswipe looked shocked at the mere mention of the idea they were not good "Parents". "Speaking of which, where are the tiny terrors?"

Sideswipe smirked. "Ironhide's babysitting." Alarmed, Ratchet looked at the younger mech. "What? Sunstreaker is watching Ironhide."

Nightstar and Bumblebee started laughing.

* * *

For the third time in as many minutes, Ironhide tried the door. It was still locked. He groaned internally. He'd been target shooting when Sideswipe walked in with a sparkling under each arm.

"_Hey Ironhide, could you take care of Neon and Nitro for a while?"_

_Ironhide blinked. "Err… what?"_

"_I need to go out and Nightstar's still stuck in medbay. Could you baby-sit for a bit?" Sideswipe gave Ironhide a "puppy-dog look" but the weapons expert was immune._

"_You sparked the whelps, you raise them." Ironhide turned away indifferently._

_Sideswipe grinned impishly at his back. "Thanks a lot!" He set his twins down and they made a run for Ironhide, chirruping happily. "Okay you two, be nice to grandpa Ironhide." He retreated and locked the door before Ironhide could react. "Oh, and no swearing in front of them!" He yelled through the door. "And don't even think of shooting anywhere near them!"_

_Angrily, Ironhide slammed his fist against the door. It didn't budge. "No shooting anywhere near them, eh?" Thought Ironhide furiously. "Well, what about directly at them?" He aimed his right-arm cannon at Nitro who gave him a quizzical look._

_But Ironhide fortunately didn't get to fire; he felt a sudden, intense pain on his arm and turned to see Sunstreaker standing in the elevated viewing area, accessible only through an external door. The yellow warrior's left arm was converting back from cannon mode. Sunstreaker made an "Tsk tsk" gesture with is right hand. "Don't hurt the little'uns now."_

So now Ironhide was locked in the target range with Sideswipe's brats climbing all over him. Sunstreaker was leaning on the viewing area's rail, making sure that Ironhide did nothing to harm his twin's sparklings. He was also there to enjoy the show.

"Ienhide!" Exclaimed Neon. She tugged at him until he grudgingly looked at her. "Ienhide pay?"

"Hunh?" Grunted the confused Autobot.

"Ienhide PWAY!" She yelped and then climbed up his arm and she actually reached his shoulders.

Sunstreaker roared with mirth. "Ironhide play!" He imitated, howling.

Ironhide growled, and Nitro tried to imitate him. "Rrrrr!" Sunstreaker went into conniptions at the hilarity of it all as Ironhide tried and failed to remove the minute femme from his head.

Then Nitro curiously stuck his head into the barrel of Ironhide's left arm cannon. "Ohhh…" He cheerfully balanced on the Black mech's wrist and stuck his head in further.

Ironhide moaned. "Take me now Primus." Above, Sunstreaker continued to laugh hysterically.

* * *

Sideswipe found the switch to deactivate the bonds holding Nightstar down. "I'm not completely irresponsible Ratchet, I kept Nightstar alive when she was sparking, didn't I?"

"That you did," Admitted Ratchet. "And a very good job of it too, all things considered. I couldn't have done it." Sideswipe brightened cheerfully. Though he would never admit it, the medic's approval was very important to Sideswipe. Ratchet was the first bot Sideswipe had met after Sunstreaker, his twin.

Sideswipe and his brother were Allspark created; born fully aware and mature (Although the second is still up for debate according to Prowl). The Allspark had created a single, unusually bright spark that had split into two nearly identical smaller sparks, and then it had infused them within bodies. Ratchet had been fortunate to be close enough to see this; he'd been amazed. Many bots had heard of twins, but they were a scarcity, and often considered lucky. The twins, not the mech who'd found them. Had Ratchet known that, he would not have gone down to meet the newly created twins to try and convince them to join the Autobots. Although truthfully, he did like the twins quite a bit, when they weren't pranking the slag outta him.

Nightstar sat up only to have Sunstreaker pin her back down playfully. "Hey!" He had her arms pinned above her head with his left hand and his right knee was resting on her legs, effectively holding her down.

Ratchet scowled, even thought he felt rather amused. "No molesting my patients you!"

Sideswipe looked offended at the idea he'd hurt Nightstar. The femme also seemed offended, but the medic guessed that she was annoyed that Ratchet would think that she'd let a mech get away with molesting her. She jerked her hands down towards her head, causing Sideswipe to lose his balance and tumble onto her. Nightstar used the momentum to roll off the table, dragging her spark-mate with her.

A playful wrestling match ensued. As Ratchet and Bumblebee watched, open-mouthed, Nightstar kicked and fought to gain the advantage while Sideswipe attempted to pin her down again. She tried to use her flexibility and cunning to win, but Sideswipe's brute strength won over. "Ha! Nice try Star."

Pinned on her stomach, Nightstar muttered something indistinct. Sideswipe had one hand holding her arms behind her and the other pinning her face to the floor. "Fuck you." She growled, voice somewhat muffled by the floor.

Grinning, Sideswipe lowered his head to her audio and whispered so only she could hear. "Later." He said teasingly.

Nightstar muttered something viral, but didn't actually seem displeased by Sideswipe's playful jesting. She went limp in surrender and Sideswipe happily released her. Ratchet just shook his head at them in disbelief.

The medbay door opened and Neon came running in, squealing delightedly. Following along behind her was a grinning Sunstreaker, Nitro dangling from under the yellow warrior's arm like a rag doll. Neon made a yelping noise and climbed onto one of the tables. "Atchet!" She yipped, pointing at the medic. "Atchet!" Brightly, she stood up and promptly fell off the table. Giggling, she ran over to the medic and gave him a puppy-dog look. "Atchet pway?"

Even the gruff medic was not immune to the sparkling's charm; he knelt down and looked at her. "Pardon?" He asked patiently.

"She wants to play," Sunstreaker informed him spiritedly. He put Nitro down. The little mech ran over to Sideswipe and hugged his leg. Sideswipe grinned down at him.

"Hey shrimp."

"You shoulda seen them with Ironhide," Said Sunstreaker happily. "Poor guy had no idea what he was supposed to do."

Ratchet picked Neon up before she could try to bite him. Inexplicably, whenever one of the sparklings wanted something, they would try to bite a leg; amusing if only because, as robots, their mouths were not made for anything remotely like biting… Or really anything for that matter, except that a mouth made it easier to emote. "Why did you leave them with him of all people Sideswipe?"

"Who, Sunstreaker or Ironhide?"

"Both."

Nightstar laughed. "Because he could, I'm sure…" She sobered up though. "But I would have been worried about Ironhide's temper, he could have hurt them."

"Which was why I was there," Snicker Sunstreaker. "He didn't do anything to them." He chortled. "Wish I had a recording of Nitro sticking his head into Ironhide's cannon though, that was hilarious."

He received four wide-optic looks from the other adult Transformers in the room. The corners of Sideswipe, Nightstar, and Bumblebee's mouths were twitching in amusement. Ratchet simply looked dumbfounded. He did have to admit that the mental image was… interesting, to say the least.

Neon, still in Ratchet's arms, decided that she was bored. "PWAAAAY!" She demanded loudly. Ratchet held her at arm's length and gave her a look.

"Stop that," He told her sternly, his tone scolding. Neon struggled and started squeaking loudly, having learned that this would usually cause whoever was holding her to put her down. But Ratchet wasn't having any of that. "Quiet!" He said, just as calmly. Neon was startled into silence. She gave the medic a reproachful look.

Nightstar reached over and took Neon. Ratchet shook his head. "Let me guess… You've been spoiling them."

"Have not!" She replied. "But how exactly is one supposed to discipline two sparklings without being too hard or too kind?" She rubbed Neon's head until the sparkling stopped glaring at the medic and sat down.

"Tik tik." Nitro, who had not moved from Sideswipe's leg throughout the entire time, clicked quietly. Sideswipe bent down to pick him up. Nitro decided that he didn't mind being handled and happily fidgeted until he was sitting on Sideswipe's shoulder.

Ratchet sighed at and glanced at Bumblebee, who'd wisely keep his thoughts to himself. "I'm done with you Nightstar, so could you please leave and take your entourage with you?"

Nightstar snickered, Sunstreaker rolled his optics and Sideswipe simply grinned. The femme picked Neon up by her scruff bar; a handle built into sparklings' upper backs so that they could be picked up and held on to easier. "Alright, Come on you." Neon happily jerked her legs, causing herself to swing like a pendulum.

"Yeeeeaaaiii," she swung left. "Yeeeooouuuuu." She swung right. Nightstar laughed and walked out. Nitro slid down Sideswipe's shoulder and followed his sister happily. Sideswipe shook his head at Sunstreaker in amusement and the elder twins calmly walked out, knowing all to well that Ratchet would be looking for them soon enough.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Eyaiyayayayayayayayayayaya!" Neon ran around Nightstar quarters at top speed, letting out an infantile war cry. Nightstar reached out her arm and caught her sparkling.

"Enough of that," She said. "It hurts my audios." Neon squeaked and struggled loose. She started trying to examine Nightstar's computer, but the femme had conscientiously locked it up tight for that very reason.

Nightstar glanced over at the Lamborghini twins who were sitting quite smugly by the wall, watching Nitro with a good amount of amusement; the small mech was constantly attempting to imitate his elders. But Nitro's limbs were much to short to sit cross-legged and the result was that he was trying to push his legs into place, when the joints wouldn't go that far. He wouldn't give up trying until they were doing something else.

"So, what exactly is gonna happen when Ratchet returns to his quarters again?"

Sideswipe sniggered. "He's gonna come face-to-face with Megatron, or at least, a magnificent copy of Megatron's face."

"Wish we had a recorder of some sort," Smirked Sunstreaker. "Ratchet's gonna freak."

Nightstar giggled mischievously. "What, no sound effects?"

Sideswipe put a hand over his optics. "Sla- Dang!" He grinned apologetically at Nightstar for nearly swearing in front of Neon and Nitro. "I knew we forgot something!"

"Sladang!" Imitated Nitro brightly. Sunstreaker snorted into his hand at both Sideswipe and Nightstar's expressions. He made a mental note to help teach the sparklings, when their creators weren't around.

"Aw well," He said. "It'll still be funny."

"EPIC!" Squealed Neon.

Nightstar and the Lambo twins stared at Neon. "Where'd you learn that Neon?" Asked Nightstar curiously.

"Umbee movie-atch wit me!" Came the happy reply.

"Uh… Translation please?" Said Sunstreaker.

"She picked it up from a movie she and Bumblebee saw… I think." Replied Sideswipe. Neon nodded happily, she loved to chatter, not that anyone understood more than half of what she said.

Sideswipe snickered. "Well, you are right Neon, this prank will be epic."

"Tee hee," Neon happily climbed up a ladder that Nightstar had put in her room for the very purpose of amusing the sparklings. "I halpith nexs pank?"

"Maybe." Answered Sideswipe noncommittally.

"SLADANG!" Howled Nitro happily. Nightstar put a hand over her optics.

"I. Am. Gonna. Kill. You. Sideswipe." She muttered. Her spark-mate grinned guiltily yet amused at his twin. Sunstreaker's grin, however, was 100 amusement.

After all, it was funny, and the sparkling's new vocabulary wasn't HIS fault. Well… Not yet anyways.


End file.
